Psychiatric Illness in Adolescence: Presentation and Prognosis

Abstract

A unit for adolescent psychiatric patients was opened at St. Ebba's Hospital in 1949 by the late Dr. D. E. Sands. At that time, there were few in-patient facilities for this group of patients and the unit therefore received many of the most disabled cases from all parts of the country. Sands (1953)∗ wrote of the need for such a unit. “In the juvenile period there is psychiatric breakdown to a degree which from medical and social standpoints is as much of a problem as such illness in later life. There are some who have stated that all children's and juvenile psychoses should be treated at home. Experience with these patients has shown that, however desirable this may be in theory, it is no more practical or safe for some types of juveniles than for adults. The truth of this view might have been inferred in any case from the frequency with which such cases have found their way for years into all kinds of makeshift in-patient accommodation because home for one reason or another proved impossible or practically nonexistent”. He then gave an account of the classification, aetiology and treatment of patients on the unit and the results on discharge. The present article discusses the presentation of psychiatric illness in adolescence, reviews the follow-up on patients admitted between 1949 and 1953 and compares these follow-up results with those of Sands on discharge.