Simple screening questionnaires for major psychiatric disorders are needed for epidemiological research and clinical work. We describe the characteristics of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25 (HSCL-25) as a screening instrument in a two-phase epidemiological survey using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID) as a diagnostic tool. The material consisted of 1609 subjects aged 31 years who were asked to participate in a health survey. The invitation included the HSCL-25 questionnaire. All "screen-positive" (HSCL-25 mean>/=1.55) subjects and every tenth "screen-negative" subject were invited to participate in the SCID interview. The sensitivity of the HSCL-25 for any present DSM-III-R axis-I psychiatric disorder was 48%. The specificity was 87%. The sensitivity of cases with comorbid psychiatric disorders was 100%. The HSCL-25 is a moderate instrument for screening with present axis-I DSM-III-R psychiatric disorders in a young adult population. It can be recommended for screening of psychiatric disorders.

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Clinicians do not make the diagnosis of schizophrenia as often as the application of operational criteria would suggest they should. The discordance between clinical diagnosis and the research, operational diagnosis is especially likely in cases having late onset and few contacts to psychiatric hospital.

The results indicate good performance of the TCI and TPQ. Factor analysis support adoption of four temperament dimensions and suggest that developmental work is still needed in the RD dimension.

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Various psychiatric problems in adolescence and early adulthood have been shown to associate with criminal behaviour. In this study the association of personality disorders (PDs) with criminal behaviour was examined in adolescents treated in psychiatric hospitals. The study sample consisted of 508 adolescents (age 13-17) admitted to acute psychiatric impatient care between April 2001 and March 2006. Crime data was obtained from the Finnish Legal Register Centre on September 2013. The Schedule for Affective Disorder and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children Present and Lifetime (K-SADS-PL) was used to assess psychiatric diagnoses in adolescence. The information on PDs in early adulthood was based on follow-up information on psychiatric treatments in either out- or inpatient settings until the end of 2012, and was extracted from the National Care Register for Health Care provided by the Finnish National Institute for Health and Welfare. A total of 22 (39%) of the 57 subjects with PD had committed a crime. In women, the likelihood for violent criminality was significantly increased in those with Borderline PD (OR 6.09, CI 1.24-29.84, p=0.009) and was also associated with conduct disorder (OR 4.26, CI 1.38-13.19, p=0.012), child welfare placement (OR 11.82, CI 3.61-38.76, p<0.001) and parent's substance use disorder (OR 7.74, CI 2.30-26.10, p=0.001). In men, no association was observed between PD and any kind of criminal behaviour. Significant predictors for violent criminality in males were conduct disorder (OR 4.05, CI 1.75-9.38, p=0.001), substance use disorder (OR 2.51, CI 1.22-5.17, p=0.012) and special services at school (OR 2.58, CI 1.16-5.76, p=0.021). Females with Borderline PD showed an increased risk for violent offending. This suggests Borderline PD as a potential explanatory factor for violent assaults by females and highlights the importance of recognizing the risk for violence in young women with a Borderline PD.