Psychopathology of latency age children. Relation to treatment planning.

Abstract

One hundred three children, ages 6 to 12 years, who were evaluated in a psychiatric outpatient clinic and an inpatient unit of a large municipal hospital, were compared with regard to suicidal and assaultive behaviors, recent and chronic affects and behaviors, recent environmental stresses, family background, and ego functioning. The hospitalized children showed multiple deficits in ego functioning, more dangerous acting out behaviors, disabilities in regulation of affect states, and more severe psychopathology of the parents, primarily the mother. Multiple regression analyses showed that the child's assaultive behavior, suicidal behavior, antisocial behavior, reality testing, parental separation, and parental pregnancy complications accounted for 51.2 per cent of the variance in the prediction of psychiatric hospitalization. Recommendations are made concerning indications for psychiatric hospitalization.