Prisoners as medical patients

Abstract

Nonpsychiatric and nonobstetrical principal diagnoses of 527 prison inmates discharged in 1981 from one referral hospital were reviewed. Male prisoners had the following diagnoses more frequently than an age-matched and sex-matched sample of the general population: lymphadenopathy, viral hepatitis, foreign body insertion into the gastrointestinal tract, dental caries, and pulmonary tuberculosis. Some differences may be due to lifestyles preceding incarceration, others may result from conditions of the prison environment.