Aggressive behavior in youth: characteristics, outcome, and psychiatric diagnoses.

This study evaluated the characteristics and outcome of a group of children and adolescents treated in day hospital and inpatient settings. Severe aggressive/destructive behavior was present in about one-third of the sample and was more common in boys, in children and adolescents with history of parental substance abuse, and in those with a concurrent diagnosis of conduct disorder. Although both an admission diagnosis of conduct disorder and aggressive/destructive behavior as a preadmission variable predicted poor outcome, aggressive/destructive behavior was the more important of the two. Aggressive/destructive behavior in association with conduct disorder seems to confer an especially poor prognosis in hospital-treated youth.