Community-based study of the transition to adulthood for adolescents with psychiatric disorder

Abstract

This longitudinal study examines the transition to adulthood in a randomly sampled, community-based cohort of adolescents. The study compares young adult outcomes of 33 adolescents with and 148 adolescents without psychiatric disorder. After adjustment for differences in age, gender, and social class, adolescents with psychiatric disorder were 13.74 times less likely to complete secondary school (95% confidence interval (CI): 4.17, 45.17), 4.07 times less likely to be employed or in college or trade school (95% CI: 1.4, 12.3), 3.13 times more likely to be involved in criminal activity (95% CI: 1.11, 8.87), and 6.46 times more likely to have gotten pregnant themselves or to have gotten someone else pregnant (95% CI: 1.75, 23.87). While adolescents with psychiatric disorder in this community-based study had outcomes that were somewhat more favorable than those of adolescents with psychiatric disorder in prior treatment-based studies, they nonetheless are at high risk of failing to meet young adult role expectations.