The identification of psychiatric disorders in children who fail to attend school: a cluster analysis of a non-clinical population

Abstract

SYNOPSISInterviews were conducted with parents of 100 children taken to a ‘School attendance committee’, because of persistent failture to attend School. Clinical assessmen t of the attendance problem was carried out so that children were categorized as ‘School refusers’ (N = 24), ‘truants’ (N =53), ‘both refusers and truants’ (N =9), or as ‘neither’ (N =14). Any ICD-9 psychiatirc disorder was separately identified. Cluster analysis of information collected in a standard way indicated that there was a group of children with the features of ‘School refusal’ who often had genralized neurotic disorders as well and who were mostly girls, another group with the feature of ‘truancy’ all of whom had conduct disorders who were mainly boys, and a third cluster of childrsen who were usually ‘truants’ but less often psychiatrically disturbed. The study provided evidence for the existence of School refusal with and without generalized neurotic disturbance in a non-clinical population.

Externalizing and internalizing syndromes in relation to school truancy among adolescents in high‐risk urban schools

“…However, many argued against this approach in preference of a descriptive definition because it does not reflect the true picture of the link with psychopathology (Egger et al, 2003). Studies showed that truancy and school refusal are not as mutually exclusive as previously believed (Bools et al, 1990, Berg et al, 1993, Egger et al, 2003, Kearney and Silverman, 1993. This study finding is indicative of this notion while it also identified other important psychosocial factors contributing to truancy that may play a bigger role.…”

“…Across studies, truancy was identified in multiple ways including by teachers' report like this one, students' self-report (NPFDB, 1999;Nihon, 1984), parents' knowledge (Bools et al, 1990;Berg, 1992) or even a multiple informants (Egger et al, 2003). Nevertheless, Hibbett (1987) reported high correlations among teachers', pupils' and parents' truancy reports with actual attendance rates from the data analysis of the National Child Development Study (Fogelman 1996).…”

“…Nevertheless, there is fair evidence that those engaged in truancy have a mixture of behavioral and emotional problems (Bools et al, 1990;Berg et al, 1993, Egger et al, 2003. School truancy was also found to be a powerful predictor of a variety of adult psychiatric disorders (Robins 1978, Robins & Robertson, 1996.…”

“…Unfortunately, there are few studies focusing on school truancy and psychopathology, particularly in non-clinical setting. Many earlier studies were based either on clinic-referred samples (Hersov, 1960;Robins 1978) or referrals to school attendance committees or court (Bools et al, 1990;Robins 1978). Published work shows that studies conducted at schools like in the Bradford Survey (Berg et al, 1993) and the Great Smoky Mountains Study (Egger et al, 2003) which investigated the nature of psychiatric disorders in school absentees, identified an overlap of psychiatric symptoms among the students.…”

Schulabsentismus in Deutschland - Die Prävalenz von entschuldigten und unentschuldigten Fehlzeiten und ihre Korrelation mit emotionalen und Verhaltensauffälligkeiten

“…Unter dem Terminus Schulabsentismus werden generell schulaversive, unterrichtsvermeidende Verhaltensmuster subsumiert (Ricking, 2003). Somit bezeichnet Schulabsentismus zunächst das wiederholte Fernbleiben vom Unterricht, ohne Aussagen zu Informiertheit der Eltern und zugrunde liegender Motivation des Schülers zu treffen (Stamm, Ruckdäschel, Templer, 2009 (Bools, Foster, Brown, Berg, 1990;Egger, Costello, Angold, 2003). Weiterhin gibt es schulabstinente Jugendliche, die sich keiner der Kategorien zuordnen lassen (Ricking, 2003).…”