Forensic adolescent psychiatry: the care situation in Austria

Abstract

In Austria there is alack of registered experts in the field of forensic child and adolescent psychiatry. Their tasks include the assessment of young people in various legal issues, but there is also alack of child and adolescent psychiatrists for treatment and care for mentally ill adolescents in prison. This lack means that child psychiatric questions are often answered by psychologists or adult psychiatrists.In the group of incarcerated young people, there is an increased proportion of mental illnesses. However, it is also known that young people with-primarily externalizing-mental illnesses also show asignificantly increased risk of becoming delinquent. Specialized youth psychiatric treatment can also have a(relapse) preventive effect.To ascertain the exact requirement in Austria, the figures are lacking. These numbers should be collected urgently.Furthermore, astructured training for forensic child and adolescent psychiatrists should be expanded and aplatform for exchange and supervision of child psychiatrists working in forensic topics would be desirable. If it is possible to cover the need in this area, the goal that children and adolescents are only examined by specially trained child and adolescent psychiatrists, can be achieved.