PSYCHIATRIC MORBIDITY AMONG JAIL INMATES

Abstract

Objective: (1) To find out the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among prison
population. (2) To find out whether any association exist between psychiatric disorders and
different demographic variables. (3) To assess the severity of the problem and need for the
prevision of psychiatric services to jail inmates. Study Design: Crossectional study. Period: Six
months starting from June 5th 2007 to November 30th 2007. Setting: Kot Lakpat Jail, Lahore.
Method: All the prisoners who had been sentenced by session court for the crime of murder
were the target of the study Sample Size: Five hundred cases were interviewed to complete
the study. The study had a 2 stages design. During the first stage all the randomly selected
prisoners (18 or more than 18 years of age and sentenced for the charge or murder) were
called in the library of the jail and given screening instrument. The GHQ-12 was completed by
the prisoner on voluntary basis with minimal explanation. If the prisoner was unable to read
or understand assistant researcher, jail Medical officer had to read it in front of the prisoner
and record his responses. In this way expected cases were selected and screened out. In the
second stage diagnostic interviews were administered by the author on the same day to all the
prisoners who scored two and above on the GHQ-12 and 1/10th of those who were low scores
(1 or 0). These responses were recorded on rating forms. The author was blind to the scores
of GHQ-12. Results Five hundred jail inmates were interviewed in the study. Out of those total
500 prisoners 176 (35.2%) prisoners were GHQ-12 positive cases while 324 (64.80%) prisoners
were GHQ-12 negative (Table I). The difference was statistically highly significant (P<0.00001).
Conclusions: In this study the prevalence of minor psychiatric morbidity was assessed. Five
hundred randomly selected prisoners were interviewed. Out of them 397 prisoners were
selected from open prison and 103 prisoners from closed prison. In the first stage GHQ-12 was
administered to detect the cases. In the second stage PAS was administered to all high score
(2 or above) and 10% of low scores. PAS detected minor psychiatric morbidity like depression,
anxiety, panic disorder and phobic disorders. Diagnosis was based on DSM-111-R criteria.
Their demographic characteristics were also obtained and comparison was made among open
and closed prisoners.