background The Quality of Life (QoL) concept has received considerable attention in psychiatry since the early 1980’s. Today, QoL is still not studied in all domains of psychiatry, for instance youth forensic psychiatry. It is important to focus on QoL in detained youngsters since a low QoL seems to correlate with criminal behaviour (Van Nieuwenhuizen e.a. 2002).
aim To examine empirical studies pertaining to QoL and youth forensic psychiatry and to show results of the pilot study.
methods A literature search was conducted on QoL of young and adult psychiatric patients. Also, an exploratory study on 38 male youngsters between the ages of 16 and 23, who were treated at a youth forensic psychiatric hospital was performed. The youth version of the Lancashire Quality of Life Profile (lqolp) was used which comprises several domains: work and education, leisure and participation, religion, finances, living situations, legal and safety, family relations, social relations, and health.
results The few empirical studies that exist indicate that adult detained patients report a lower QoL on specific life domains, for instance living situation and health. Swinton e.a. (1999) and Bouman e.a. (2008), moreover, found that patients with a personality disorder are less satisfied with their overall QoL compared to patients suffering from an Axis I mental disorder. As for the exploratory study with youngsters: more than half of them reported a low QoL on finances and living situation. Only a small percentage reported a low QoL regarding safety and youngsters reported to be very satisfied with the relation they had with their family.
conclusion QoL in youth forensic psychiatry is an area which still needs a lot of attention. Especially the link between QoL and recidivism risks needs to be investigated in future research. To this end, the Good Lives Model might form an interesting theoretical basis.