Tackling Risk Sexual Behaviours in Co-educational Department of Adolescent Psychiatry – the Challenge for Systemic Approach in Treatment

Abstract

Risk sexual behaviours (defined and categorized in the paper) are common in developmental population with devastating consequences especially in clinical subpopulations. On the basis of case studies and post-factum descriptions of young adults, randomly pulled out from the cohort of ex-patients (in the period of the last 15 years) of the Department of Adolescent Psychiatry in Collegium Medicum N. Copernicus University in Torun, Poland (total 1220 cases; barely 10% drawn into study) the importance of expressed sexual behaviours and the ways of upshot amelioration undertaken by the staff are discussed. Almost all of the responders reported that sexual activity they actively expressed and/or passively received during psychiatric hospitalization had a crucial role, either in at that time cost-benefit assessment of the treatment or for the curve of the following trajectory of development. The main features, characterized those descriptions are grouped into several clusters of interest. I. The significance of clinical diagnosis of the patient and the position of sexual behaviours in his/her relevant psychopathology II. The risk of sexual harassment (even as passive observer) and the perceived reactions of the staff III. The role of family system, pre-morbid intrinsic ties and the strength of attachment IV. The saturation of declared and implemented sexual rules and attitudes within family, reference peer group and social/cultural milieu referred to subjective internalization The remedies ameliorated noxious upshot included structural and functional protective adaptation of the Department and explanation to the caregivers and to the patients the role and the meaning of sexual behaviour (described in details in paper) .