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Are Disturbed and Normal Adolescents Equally Competent to Make Decisions About Mental Health Treatments?

Are Disturbed and Normal Adolescents Equally Competent to Make Decisions About Mental Health... This study uses a structured vignette procedure to assess competency to make treatment decisions in two groups of adolescents, one at risk for institutional placement and the other a matched community sample. Scores on Factual Understanding (the ability to recall facts), Inferential Understanding (the ability to make inferences about those facts), and Reasoning (the ability to weigh risks and benefits of various treatment options and to make choices based on that reasoning) were compared. Results showed that while at-risk adolescents and their community counterparts did not differ in their factual and inferential understanding abilities, the at-risk adolescents did significantly less well than the community adolescents in reasoning. This difference could not be fully explained by differences in verbal IQ. Girls, no matter what their risk status, scored higher than boys on the Reasoning scale. Implications for legal policies concerning adolescents are discussed. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Law and Human Behavior American Psychological Association

Are Disturbed and Normal Adolescents Equally Competent to Make Decisions About Mental Health Treatments?

Law and Human Behavior , Volume 20 (3): 15 – Jun 1, 1996

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References (47)

Publisher
American Psychological Association
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 American Psychological Association
ISSN
0147-7307
eISSN
1573-661X
DOI
10.1007/BF01499024
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This study uses a structured vignette procedure to assess competency to make treatment decisions in two groups of adolescents, one at risk for institutional placement and the other a matched community sample. Scores on Factual Understanding (the ability to recall facts), Inferential Understanding (the ability to make inferences about those facts), and Reasoning (the ability to weigh risks and benefits of various treatment options and to make choices based on that reasoning) were compared. Results showed that while at-risk adolescents and their community counterparts did not differ in their factual and inferential understanding abilities, the at-risk adolescents did significantly less well than the community adolescents in reasoning. This difference could not be fully explained by differences in verbal IQ. Girls, no matter what their risk status, scored higher than boys on the Reasoning scale. Implications for legal policies concerning adolescents are discussed.

Journal

Law and Human BehaviorAmerican Psychological Association

Published: Jun 1, 1996

There are no references for this article.