Conduct disorders in adolescents with an immigrant background

Abstract

Large-scale national survey have revealed an increased prevalence of aggressive behavior in adolescents with immigrant backgrounds. To date no studies have examined psychiatric health care among adolescents with immigrant backgrounds. The empirical study presented here includes 779 adolescents with different psychosocial problems, such as aggression, depression, and anxiety, who were treated in psychiatric institutions by the network of the Bremen group of clinics in 2010 and focuses on 185 young people diagnosed with ICD-10 F91 or F92 (conduct disorders). Utilization of such health care services by adolescents with an immigrant background is clearly disproportionate to the size of this population. Binary logistic regression models indicate that an immigrant background is not a predictor of conduct disorder. Factors affecting risk of conduct disorder include male sex, low educational status of parents, inadequate parenting style, low psychosocial adjustment, the number of psychosocial stressors, and chronic academic stress.