Understanding individual-level changes in mental health status after prison release is crucial to providing targeted and effective mental health care to ex-prisoners. We aimed to describe trajectories of psychological distress following prison discharge and compare these trajectories with mental health service use in the community.The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) was administered to 1216 sentenced adult prisoners in Queensland, Australia, before prison release and approximately 1, 3 and 6 months after release. We used group-based trajectory modeling to identify K10 trajectories after release. Contact with community mental health services in the year following release was assessed via data linkage.We identified five trajectory groups, representing consistently low (51.1
作者:E G, Thomas;M J, Spittal;E B, Heffernan;F S, Taxman;R, Alati;S A, Kinner
来源:Psychological medicine 2016 年 46卷 3期