CAPMH health-related quality of life among adolescent psychiatric outpatients: A 12-month follow-up study among 12-14-year-old Finnish boys and girls

Abstract

Background: Little is known about adolescents' perceptions about their health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in the course of routine adolescent psychiatric treatment. The aim of this 1-year follow-up study was to investigate HRQoL and changes in it among youths receiving adolescent psychiatric outpatient treatment. Methods: The study comprised 158 girls and 82 boys aged 12-14 years from 10 psychiatric outpatient clinics in one Finnish hospital district. Same-aged population controls (210 girls and 162 boys) were randomly collected from comprehensive schools. HRQoL was measured using the 16D instrument. The questionnaire was self-administered when the adolescents entered the polyclinics (= baseline), after a treatment period of 6 months, and after 12 months. Results: The mean age of respondents was 13.8 years (SD 0.63). At baseline, the mean HRQoL score of both female and male outpatients was significantly lower than that of population controls (p < 0.001). HRQoL of female patients was significantly worse than that of male patients (p < 0.001). In girls, HRQoL improved continuously during the 12-month follow-up, yet it remained worse than that of female population controls. Among boys, HRQoL was substantially better at the 6-month follow-up than at baseline, but this positive development was no longer seen at the 12-month follow-up. Conclusions: From the perspective of HRQoL, girls seem to benefit more than boys from adolescent psychiatric outpatient treatment. Possible explanations for this finding are discussed.