Impulsivity In Personality Disorder Research Articles

Examining readmission factors in psychiatric emergency care for individuals with personality disorders: A 6-year retrospective study.

People with personality disorders (PDs) are often admitted to psychiatric emergency services due to the frequent repetition of acute crises. This study drew on the ICD diagnostic records of 2,634 individuals with PDs who were admitted to a specialized inpatient psychiatric crisis unit over a 6-year period. Multiple logistic regressions and survival regressions were performed to examine whether PD categories, gender, and other individual, interpersonal, and precipitating factors were associated with readmission and time-to-readmission. The results showed a 16.1% readmission rate. Of these, 99.5% of readmissions occurred within 4 years following the first admission. Gender was the main factor associated with both readmission and time-to-readmission: while men were readmitted faster, more women in total were readmitted for a second psychiatric emergency hospitalization. Findings also indicated that readmission rate and time-to-readmission differed following the category of PD: readmission rate in a ratio of 1-2 (from 8% to 10% for dissocial and paranoid PD up to 19%-21% for impulsive and borderline PD), and time-to-readmission in a ratio of 1-5 (from 1 month for anankastic and dependent, to 5 months for impulsive, histrionic and anxious-avoidant PD). Limitations of this naturalistic study include a lack of self-reported measures and generalizability to less specialized emergency settings. Future research should include a prospective longitudinal design using standardized scalable measurement tools to improve the completeness and accuracy of the data concerning the psychological processes involved in risk and time-to-readmission after brief hospitalizations in emergency psychiatry. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Psychological characteristics of early stuttering

Purpose The purpose of this study was to use psychological measures of pre-schoolers who stutter and their parents to inform causal theory development and influence clinical practices. This was done using data from a substantive clinical cohort of children who received early stuttering treatment. Method The cohort (N = 427) comprised parents and their children who were treated with the Lidcombe Program, the Westmead Program, and the Oakville Program. The study incorporated demographic information, stuttering severity, and child and parent psychological measures prior to treatment. Result The cohort revealed nothing unusual about behavioural and emotional functioning, or the temperaments, of pre-school children that would influence treatment, be targeted during treatment, or influence causal theory development. However, a third of parents were experiencing moderate to high life stressors at the time of seeking treatment, and half the parents failed first-stage screening for Anankastic Personality Disorder. Conclusion The present results are consistent with a number of previous reports that showed that the population of pre-schoolers who stutter have no unusual psychological profiles. Hence, these results suggest that the association between mental health and stuttering later in life is a consequence of the disorder rather than being a part of its cause. The finding of the life stress of parents who seek stuttering treatment for pre-school children has potential clinical importance and warrants further investigation. Further psychological research is required about parents of pre-school children who stutter, because half the parents in the cohort failed the screener for Anankastic Personality Disorder. This is of interest because a previous study associated screening failure for another personality disorder (Impulsive Personality Disorder) with treatment dropout for early childhood stuttering.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Increases Nicotine Addiction Severity in Adults Seeking Treatment for Substance Use Disorders: The Role of Personality Disorders

Aims: To examine the role of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and impulsive personality disorders in nicotine addiction severity among treatment-seeking substance use disorder (SUD) patients. Methods: In a cross-sectional study, we examined data from the second International ADHD in Substance Use Disorders Prevalence Study (IASP-2) on 402 adults in SUD treatment from Puerto Rico, Hungary, and Australia using diagnostic interviews for ADHD, antisocial (ASP) and borderline (BPD) personality disorders, and the self-report Fagerström Test of Nicotine Dependence (FTND). We compared SUD patients with and without ADHD on nicotine addiction severity. We tested direct and indirect pathways from ADHD to nicotine addiction and mediation through ASP and BPD. Results: Overall, 81.4% of SUD patients reported current cigarette smoking. SUD patients with ADHD had higher FTND scores and smoked more cigarettes than those without ADHD, with an earlier onset and more years of smoking. ASP mediated the effect of ADHD on all aspects of nicotine addiction severity, whereas BPD did so only on some aspects of nicotine addiction severity. Conclusions: SUD patients with comorbid ADHD show more severe nicotine addiction than those without, which is largely explained by comorbid impulsive personality disorders. In SUD patients, it is important to screen for adult ADHD and other psychiatric disorders, especially those with impulse control deficits such as ASP and BPD.

A Critical Review of Behavioral and Emotional Disinhibition.

The theory of "disinhibition" has been very influential in psychiatry and neurology for over a century. Disinhibition has been used to explain clinical findings in many neurological and psychiatric disorders including dementia, traumatic brain injury, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, substance abuse, impulsivity in personality disorders, and neurodevelopmental disorders. In addition, disinhibition has been used as a unifying theory to link clinical observations with cognitive findings, and even cellular findings. This review discusses the origins and history of the theory of disinhibition and its strengths and weaknesses in four domains: face validity, consistency with other brain mechanisms, consistency with evolutionary mechanisms, and empiric support. I assert that the vagueness of the theory, inconsistency with other brain mechanisms, and lack of empiric support limit the usefulness of this theory. Alternative approaches, based on findings in other motor, language, and cognitive functions, are discussed.

Impulsivity in personality disorders: current views and future directions.

Impulsivity is considered a trans-diagnostic feature of many mental disorders, yet our understanding of the concept and approaches to measurement have evolved significantly with advances in neuroimaging. This review will provide an overview of impulsivity as it is currently understood, its association with personality disorder and implications for treatment. Impulsivity is now considered to involve failure of inhibitory control, either motor or cognitive, and deficits of the reward valuation system. Inhibitory control, and discounting of rewards are both independently associated with personality disorder. The tendency to choose immediate rewards over those with an associated delay is a feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD) regardless of conditions of stress. Deficits in response inhibition were also associated with BPD and were worsened under conditions of stress. These findings indicate that state impulsivity has an important role in the expression of impulsive behaviour. Exploratory studies measuring changes in these networks following psychotherapy have confirmed such methods could be used to measuring treatment response. Understanding the discrete mechanisms of impulsive decision-making and behavior, and their implications in personality disorder, offers new targets for diagnosis and intervention. Future research should aim to understand changes of impulsivity with development. Identifying the role of psychological and pharmacological intervention in modulating the development of impulsivity may prevent progression to personality disorder, and associated adverse outcomes.

Symptom covariance accounts for behavioral approach associations across impulse control disorders.

Behavioral approach system (BAS) dysfunction has been identified as a correlate of and a potential mechanism for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and comorbid disorders. This study examined the role of symptom covariation in the relations among BAS dysfunction, ADHD symptoms, and comorbid impulsive personality disorder features. Undergraduates (N=207) completed measures of BAS functioning, ADHD symptoms, and borderline and antisocial personality disorder symptoms, and associated features (i.e., relational aggression). Hierarchical regression suggested that age, impulsive ADHD symptoms, and relational aggression were associated with BAS functioning. Adding other ADHD symptom dimensions (inattention, hyperactivity) and antisocial and borderline scores to the model did not increase variance accounted for beyond that accounted for by ADHD impulsivity scores. Results highlight a role of symptom covariance in the previously demonstrated relation between BAS, impulsive presentations of ADHD, and comorbid impulsive personality pathology. Implications for etiological models of ADHD and its co-occurrence with other disorders are discussed.

The role of spitefulness in personality disorders: Toward a better comprehension of the cluster B

IntroductionCluster B personality disorders (i.e., Antisocial, Borderline, Histrionic, and Narcissistic Personality Disorders), is characterized by a dramatic pattern of relating to others, with symptoms characterized by a difficulty regulating emotional states and behavior (APA, 2000). The desire to cause pain often characterized these disorders (i.e. borderline) involving vindictively harming another with serious and often negative interpersonal consequences. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of research about the nature of relationships between spitefulness and personality disorders.ObjectiveThis study aims to investigate the association between spitefulness and personality disorders in an offenders samples (N = 305).AimsTo investigate the associations among spitefulness and personality disorders. We hypothesized that spitefulness would be differently associated with emotional and impulsive personality disorders (cluster B: antisocial, borderline, histrionic and narcissistic).ResultsAs expected, spitefulness and some personality, disorders were positively associated. Specifically, ASPD and Borderline are strongly associated with high levels of spitefulness.ConclusionsSuch results confirm the theorization that the assessment of spitefulness improve the accuracy of diagnosing of these personality disorders.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Agency in the absence of reason-responsiveness: The case of dispositional impulsivity in personality disorders

It has been argued recently that persons diagnosed with a personality disorder (PD) ought to be held responsible for their actions because these actions are voluntary (Pickard 2011, this journal). In what follows, I argue that this claim is grounded in a conception of voluntary action that is too coarse grained to provide an adequate understanding of the structure of agency in persons diagnosed with PD. When the concept of voluntary action and that of behaviors typical of PD are examined more carefully, the claim that PD behaviors are voluntary turns out to be tenuous in at least two ways. First, it becomes apparent that the grounds provided by Pickard do not conclusively establish that PD behaviors are voluntary. Second, a more refined conception of voluntary agency helps us to appreciate that, if indeed PD behaviors are voluntary, such behaviors seem at best to be voluntary in an anemic and limited sense—a sense that is quite distinct from the ordinary sense in which we speak of actions being voluntary.

The relationship between personality disorder and sleep quality in university students in China

Personality disorders formerly referred to as a class of personality types which deviate from the contemporary expectations of a society. Such a person has stable behavior models, which affect a range of significant functions in behavioral and psychological aspects. We aimed to evaluate the association between the personality disorder and the sleep and waking among university students in order to enhance undergraduates sleep quality as well as all around personality development. 615 freshmen aged 17–22 with a mean age of 19.69¡‘À1.182 (including 43.1% male and 56.6% female) were recruited from universities in Guangdong China, using stratified cluster sampling method. Two questionnaires were used: Personality Disorder Questionnaire for Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders C2-R (PDQC-CCMD C2-R) and Self-made Sleep Status Survey, which contained 3 items selecting from the Symptom Checklist 90(SCL-90), namely ¡‘®1.Trouble falling asleep¡‘ ¯, ¡‘®2.Awakening in the early morning¡‘ ¯, ¡‘®3. Sleep that is restless or disturbed¡‘ ¯. Pearson correlation analysis and independent-sample test were used for analysis. A modest but statistically significant correlation was reformed between item scores of ¡‘®1.Trouble falling asleep¡‘ ¯, ¡‘®2. Awakening in the early morning¡‘ ¯, ¡‘®3.Sleep that is restless or disturbed¡‘ ¯ and subtype scores of Paranoid personality disorder (PPD), Schizoid personality disorder (SPD), Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), Conduct disorder (CD), Histrionic personality disorder (HPD), Impulsive personality disorder (IPD), Anxious personality disorder (APD), Obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (OCPD), Dependent personality disorder (DPD)(p=.000-.042). The T -test revealed that there were significantly more trouble falling asleep, more awakening in the early morning and more restless or disturbed sleep in the group that had tendency of PPD (t1 = 3.746, p1 = .000; t2 = 3.015, p2 = .004; t3 = 4.212, p3 = .000), SPD (t1 = 4.120, p1 = .000; t2 = 1.014, p2=.319; t3 = 4.005, p3 = .000), HPD (t1 = 3.265, p1 = .001; t2 = 2.093, p2 = .038; t3 = 3.755, p3 = .000), IPD (t1 = 3.765,p1 = .000;t2 = 2.141,p2 = .035; t3 = 4.243, p3 = .000), APD (t1 = 2.977, p1 = .003; t2 = 2.918, p2 = .004; t3 = 3.769, p3 = .000) and DPD (t1 = 2.030, p1 = .043; t2 = 1.665,p2 = .098; t3 = 2.119, p3 = .035). Furthermore, there were significantly more trouble falling asleep and more restless or disturbed sleep in those who had tendency of OCPD (t1 = 2.173,p1 = .03; t3 = 2.806, p3 = .005) and more trouble falling asleep in those who had tendency of ASPD (t1 = 3.242, p1 = .001). Personality disorder has significant correlation with sleep quality. The more severe the tendency of personality disorder, the poorer the sleep quality. We should pay more attention to the sleep quality in the process of helping students who have a tendency toward personality disorders. This research was supported by Prof. Cao, Yiwei of Department of Psychology, Shenzhen University and a research partner Liu Ding.

Antipsychotics in the Treatment of Impulsivity in Personality Disorders and Impulse Control Disorders

In the last years, second generation antipsychotics have shown to be useful in the treatment of disorders with predominant impulse dyscontrol symptoms, in particular borderline personality disorder (BPD) and impulse control disorders (ICDs). Keywords: Antipsychotics, personality disorders, borderline personality disorder, impulse controlled disorders, trichotillomania, pathological gambling, skin picking, intermittent explosive disorder, efficacy, adverse effects

Antipsychotics in the Treatment of Impulsivity in Personality Disorders and Impulse Control Disorders

In the last years, second generation antipsychotics have shown to be useful in the treatment of disorders with predominant impulse dyscontrol symptoms, in particular borderline personality disorder (BPD) and impulse control disorders (ICDs). Keywords: Antipsychotics, personality disorders, borderline personality disorder, impulse controlled disorders, trichotillomania, pathological gambling, skin picking, intermittent explosive disorder, efficacy, adverse effects

Usefulness of the International Personality Disorder Examination screening questionnaire for borderline and impulsive personality pathology in adolescents

The aim of this study was to analyze the usefulness of the International Personality Disorder Examination Screening Questionnaire (IPDE-SQ) for identifying DSM-IV and ICD-10 Borderline and Impulsive personality disorders (PD) in Spanish adolescents. MethodThe DSM-IV and ICD-10 IPDE-SQ screeners were used and compared with the diagnoses obtained with the IPDE semistructured interview in a sample of 125 adolescents treated in a psychiatric department. ResultsFor primary screening, the cutoff point with the best combination of sensitivity and specificity for ICD-10 impulsive and borderline PDs was obtained with three positive items, whereas for DSM-IV borderline the best PD cut-off was five positive items. For secondary screening, the best option would be one item above the cut-off points proposed for primary screening. ConclusionThe 3-item cut-off point in the IPDE-SQ produces a high proportion of false positives on impulsive and borderline PDs in clinical adolescents. We propose several cut-off points, depending on whether the study is designed to perform primary or secondary screening.

Are DSM-IV-TR Borderline Personality Disorder, ICD-10 Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder, and CCMD-III Impulsive Personality Disorder Analogous Diagnostic Categories Across Psychiatric Nomenclatures?

This study examined the validity of the borderline construct which encompasses diagnostic criteria from the DSM-IV-TR Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), ICD-10 Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD), and CCMD-III Impulsive Personality Disorder (IPD) in a sample of 1,419 Chinese psychiatric patients. Participants completed the Chinese Personality Disorder Inventory and the Chinese Personality Assessment Inventory-2 assessing various disordered personality features. Adequate internal consistency was found for the borderline construct (α = .83). Exploratory factor analysis revealed two components: (1) affective and cognitive disturbances, and (2) impulse dysregulation, which were replicated by confirmatory factor analysis. Item analysis indicated that the various borderline criteria displayed similar levels of diagnostic efficiency, which does not support the elimination of fear of abandonment and transient psychotic features from the EUPD and IPD criteria set. Findings of this study suggest that BPD, EUPD, and IPD may represent analogous diagnostic categories across classification systems.

The association between personality disorder and an act of deliberate self harm in the older person

Suicide rates are higher in the over 65s than in younger adults and there is a strong link between deliberate self harm (DSH) and suicide in older people. The association between personality disorder (PD) and DSH in older adults remains uncertain. Our objective was to describe this association. A case control study was conducted in which participants were: (i) those who had undertaken an act of DSH and (ii) a hospital-based control group drawn from a geographical contiguous population. PD was assessed using the Standardised Assessment of Personality (SAP). Seventy-seven cases of DSH were identified; 61 (79.2%) of these participants were interviewed. There were 171 potential controls identified of whom 140 (81.9%) were included. An SAP was completed in 45/61 (73.8%) of cases and 100/140 (71.4%) of controls. The mean age was 79.8 years (SD = 9, range 65-103). The crude odds ratio for the association between PD and DSH was 5.91 [(95% CI 2.3, 14.9) p<0.0001]. There was a strong interaction with age stratified at 80 years. There was no association between PD and DSH after age 80. The adjusted odds ratio for PD in the group <80 years was 20.5 [(95% CI 3, 141) p = 0.002]. Borderline and impulsive PD traits tended to be associated with an episode of DSH more than other personality types. PD appears to be a strong and independent risk for an act of DSH in people aged between 65 and 80 years and should be looked for as part of any risk assessment in this population. Access to specialist services may be required to optimally manage this problem and reduce the subsequent risk of suicide.

Genetics of addiction in legal medicine and forensic investigation: SNPs variations associated with nicotine and cannabis dependence

Substance addiction is a complex chronic brain disorder, characterized by neurobiological changes leading to compulsive drug seeking and taking. Although environmental factors contribute to drug addiction, evidence showed that genetic factors with multiple genes also play a significant role. Cannabis and tobacco result as the most common widely abused substances. Epidemiological studies have strongly implicated genetics in nicotine and marijuana consuming and vulnerability to subsequent dependence, estimating the range of heritability from 34% to 78% for cannabis and approximately from 50% to 70% for nicotine. Furthermore, varying aspects of impulsive personality and principal psychiatric disorders co-occur with tobacco and cannabis dependence status. We evaluate the possibility of identifying an individual's risk probability to become an addict, based on a genotype analysis and the different possible applications in legal medicine and forensic genetics.

S.22.04 Psychopharmacological treatment of impulsivity in personality disorders

Psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) often occur across different non-psychotic disorders in adolescent and young adult population and are related to early trauma. However, the mechanisms of how exposure to early trauma shapes the risk of PLEs are unclear. In our study, we investigated whether borderline personality features and further non-psychotic symptoms, i.e. factors related to both PLEs and childhood trauma, may mediate the relationship between childhood trauma and PLEs.Two hundred inpatients aged 16–21 years who were treated due to non-psychotic disorders were included. PLEs were assessed with the Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ-16). Childhood Trauma was assessed with the Adverse Childhood Experience Questionnaire (ACE). Borderline personality features were assessed by using the Borderline-Symptom Checklist (BSL-23). Presence and frequency of depressive symptoms and anxiety were assessed by Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire (GAD-7).A significant relationship between childhood trauma (ACE total score) and PLEs was found (ß = 0.30, 95% CI 0.247--0.659). In particular, emotional neglect (r = 0.298, p < 0.001) and sexual abuse (r = 0.264, p < 0.001) were significantly associated with PLEs. Borderline personality features fully mediated the relationship of childhood trauma and PLEs (ß = 0.12, 95% CI: -0.019--0.370). Anxiety and Depression showed a significant, but partial mediation of the relationship.Borderline personality features seem to be an important mediator of the relationship between childhood trauma and PLEs in adolescent patients with different non-psychotic psychiatric disorders. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.

Diagnosis of borderline personality disorder in China: Current status and future directions

This paper reviews the current status and future directions of borderline personality disorder (BPD) research in China. Although the committee of the third version of the Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders (CCMD-3) rejected BPD as a valid diagnostic category and instead adopted the term impulsive personality disorder (IPD), our literature review on personality disorders from 1979 to 2008 in China indicated that BPD was the most popular research topic among researchers and clinicians. Available empiric evidence on BPD in China provided preliminary support for the construct validity and clinical utility of BPD in clinical and nonclinical Chinese samples. Future studies in the following areas are suggested: 1) developing reliable assessment instruments for measuring BPD pathology in China, 2) comparing the construct validity and phenomenology of CCMD IPD and DSM BPD among Chinese patients, 3) examining potential cultural differences in symptom expression of BPD pathology among the Chinese, and 4) exploring indigenous and imported methods for treating BPD patients in China.

PW01-03 Neurocognitive basis of impulsivity in personality disorders

Aim:1.Whether patients with personality disorders of borderline and antisocial type have a specific pattern of neurocognitive deficits.2.Whether impulsivity measured with clinical rating scales is related with performance on neuropsychological tests of risk taking which is sensitive to ventrofrontal cortex lesions.Method:20 patients and their age, sex and IQ matched controls participated in the study. Each patient and control was administered validated clinical rating scales in order to:1.Ascertain the diagnosis with respect to DSM-IV criteria (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM: Personality Disorder.2.Obtain a measure of clinical impulsivity (Barratt Impulsiveness scale).3.Ascertain the presence of heritable personality traits (Dimensional Aspects Of Personality Pathology Disorder-Basic Questionnaire).4.Exclude other major psychiatric disorders (Clinical Psychopathology Rating Scale).They were administered National Adult Reading Test (NART) to estimate IQ.A battery of neuropsychological tests of memory and executive function specifically sensitive to frontal (dorsal or ventral) or temporal lobe damage were administered from Cambridge Automated Neuropsychological Test battery (CANTAB).Results:On Neuropsychological testing patients fared poorly on tests sensitive to planning and risk taking compared to controls. Patients had high mean scores on Barratt impulsiveness scale. The high scores were associated with performance on Tower Of London, Bechara test and paired associated learning. Impulsivity was associated with anxiousness and rejection traits of DAPP-BQ. There was a co-relation between some basic dispositional traits of DAPP-BQ with performance on Bechara, Gambling and Paired Associated Learning tests.Conclusion:Personality disordered patients show broad range of neurocognitive deficits on test s sensitive to frontal cortex.

P03-83 Neurocognitive basis of impulsivity in personality disorders

Aim:1.Whether patients with personality disorders of borderline and antisocial type have a specific pattern of neurocognitive deficits.2.Whether impulsivity measured with clinical rating scales is related with performance on neuropsychological tests of risk taking which is sensitive to ventrofrontal cortex lesions.Method:20 patients and their age, sex and IQ matched controls participated in the study. Each patient and control was administered validated clinical rating scales in order to:1.Ascertain the diagnosis with respect to DSM-IV criteria (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM: Personality Disorder.2.Obtain a measure of clinical impulsivity (Barratt Impulsiveness scale).3.Ascertain the presence of heritable personality traits (Dimensional Aspects of Personality Pathology Disorder-Basic Questionnaire).4.Exclude other major psychiatric disorders (Clinical Psychopathology Rating Scale).They were administered National Adult Reading Test (NART) to estimate IQ.A battery of neuropsychological tests of memory and executive function specifically sensitive to frontal (dorsal or ventral) or temporal lobe damage were administered from Cambridge Automated Neuropsychological Test battery (CANTAB).Results:On Neuropsychological testing patients fared poorly on tests sensitive to planning and risk taking compared to controls. Patients had high mean scores on Barratt impulsiveness scale. the high scores were associated with performance on Tower of London, Bechara test and paired associated learning. Impulsivity was associated with anxiousness and rejection traits of DAPP-BQ. There was a co-relation between some basic dispositional traits of DAPP-BQ with performance on Bechara, Gambling and Paired Associated Learning tests.Conclusion:Personality disordered patients show broad range of neurocognitive deficits on test s sensitive to frontal cortex.

Psychiatric morbidity among convicted male sex offenders at Kamiti Prison, Kenya

To determine the prevalence and distribution of psychiatric morbidity among convicted male sex offenders and to establish factors associated with sexual offending. A Cross-sectional descriptive survey. Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, Nairobi, Kenya. Seventy six male convicts. Forty seven (61.8%) had defilement-related convictions, 23 (30.3%) had rape-related, while six (7.9%) had other convictions. Twenty seven (35.5%) out of 76 had a DSM-IV Axis I disorder, majority of whom (71.1%) were dependent on or abused substances, and 26 (34.2%) had an Axis II disorder, most of whom had antisocial and impulsive personality disorders (46.2%). Of these 12 (15.8%) had an Axis I diagnosis alone, 11 (14.5%) had an Axis II diagnosis alone while 15 (19.7%) had both Axis I and II diagnoses, that is, co-morbidity. Exposure to erotica was statistically associated with both Axis I and II (p = 0.02 and p = 0.0003 respectively) and pre-occupation with thoughts about sex was associated with Axis II disorders (p = 0.01). Most of those with psychiatric morbidity targeted children and had antisocial or impulsive personality disorder. Awareness campaigns to enlighten the public of the fact that children are the most common victims and research to determine ways of treating and rehabilitating sexual offenders could reduce the vice.