Abstract
This study identified factors correlating with noncompliance with family court ordered evaluations. Ninety charts from a juvenile justice clinic were reviewed. Subject noncompliance was defined as failure to attend three consecutive appointments. Patient, family, and environmental factors were analyzed. Forty-two percent of the subjects were noncompliant. Five variables discriminated compliant from noncompliant subjects: parental cooperation, prior criminal charge, school behavior problems, treatment at another facility, and disruptive behavior disorder. Utilizing these predictors, only 13 percent of subjects were misclassified as noncompliant in a discriminant analysis. It is concluded that a Court order by itself does not guarantee compliance with a mental health evaluation. However, the findings suggest that the risk for noncompliance may be assessed at the outset of the evaluation utilizing the above identified factors.
Footnotes
-
Gabriel Kaplan, M.D., is an assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at New Jersey Medical School; Delizia Pannullo is a Clinician at the UMDNJ-CMHC in Newark, New Jersey; David Brodzinsky, Ph.D., is an associate professor of clinical and developmental psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey; Jennifer Clarke Hitt is a Doctoral Candidate at Rutgers University. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in New Orleans, May 11-16, 1991. Address reprint requests to: Gabriel Kaplan, M.D., 159 Millburn Avenue, Millburn, NJ 07041.
- Copyright © 1994, The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law
