A meta-analysis of the association between mental disorders and juvenile recidivism

Abstract

To investigate the association between mental disorders and recidivism in juveniles, a three-level meta-analysis of 20 manuscripts (17 independent studies, N = 5737 juveniles) was conducted. The study focused on internalizing disorders, externalizing disorders, and comorbid disorders (combinations of an internalizing and externalizing disorder). Small to moderate mean effect sizes were found for externalizing disorders (d = 0.415, p b 0.001) and comorbid disorders (d = 0.366, p b 0.001), and no relation was found between internalizing disorders and recidivism (d = 0.016, p = 0.877). For comorbid disorders, no significant variation was found between studies and between effect sizes within studies. Therefore, moderator analyses were only conducted for studies on internalizing and externalizing disorders. These analyses revealed that type of recidivism (e.g., rearrest, reincarceration), type of delinquency (e.g., overt and covert delinquency), and gender influenced the direction and magnitude of the associations between recidivism and internalizing and externalizing disorders.

An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-regression Analysis: Mental Disorders Among Adolescents in Juvenile Detention and Correctional Facilities

“…Effective treatment will likely improve prognosis and reduce suicidality, violence, and reoffending risk. 88 Some limitations should be noted. First, owing to discrepancies in how substance use disorder and other mental disorders were classified between studies, it was not possible to reliably examine comorbidity.…”

Fitting three-level meta-analytic models in R: A step-by-step tutorial

“…In their meta-analytic study, Wibbelink et al (2016) focused on associations between mental health disorders of delinquent juveniles and subsequent delinquent behavior of those juveniles (i.e., recidivism). More specifically, the first aim of the study was to meta-analytically estimate an overall association between mental health disorders of juveniles and recidivism, since there are considerable differences in the associations found in primary studies.…”

“…The data set used in the present example was based on the data set created by Wibbelink, Hoeve, Stams, and Oort (2016). studyID = Unique identifier for each primary study; effectsizeID = Unique identifier for each effect size; y = Variable containing all effect sizes; v = Variable containing all sampling variances; pstatpub = Published primary studies (0 = not published; 1 = published); Pstatnotpub = Unpublished primary studies (0 = published; 1 = unpublished); typegen = General delinquency; typeovert = Overt delinquency; typecovert = Covert delinquency.…”

“…The rma.mv function is part of this package and makes it possible to fit multilevel meta-analytic models that can be extended by including moderators. To illustrate how a three-level random effects meta-analytic model can be set up using the rma.mv function in the R environment, we will present an example of meta-analytic research on the association between mental health disorders and juvenile offender recidivism, which was adapted from the work of Wibbelink, Hoeve, Stams, and Oort (2016). The reader will be guided through this example in a stepwise manner.…”

Delinquency Predictors: Offending to Commitment

“…Comorbid disorders also had a small to medium effect size. On the other hand, internalizing disorders (depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress disorder) alone had no relationship with recidivism (Wibbelink et al, 2017).…”