Portraits of child psychiatric inpatient treatment in Finland and Norway.

This epidemiological point prevalence study explores and compares the content of child psychiatric inpatient treatment and the use of different treatment methods in Finland and in Norway. In Finland the study was carried out in January and in Norway in November, 1988. The material consisted in both countries of all patients in child psychiatric inpatient units on the study day (Finland 237 patients, Norway 243 patients). Most of the child psychiatric inpatients were boys (Finland 75%, Norway 70%). The mean ages for boys were 10.2 years in Finland and 11.9 years in Norway, and for girls 11.3 years and 13.5 years, respectively. In Finland, adjustment disorders (32% vs 7%) and psychoses (8% vs 3%) were more prevalent as reasons for hospitalization than in Norway, where conduct (24% vs 8%) and personality disorders (11% vs 4%) were more dominant. The numbers were nearly the same in both countries for autism (11-13%), attention deficit or hyperkinetic disorders (5-7%) and emotional disorders (20-26%). The planned length of hospital treatment was longer in Norway (22 months) than in Finland (11 months). A dyadic relationship with an environmental therapist or personal nurse (97-100%), and parental guidance (70-75%) were the principle treatment modes. Individual psychotherapy and family therapy were the treatment modes of choice for about one third of the patients. The prevalence of psychiatric medication was twice as high in Finland (20%) as in Norway (11%). The most important forms of medication used were, in Finland, neuroleptics (63% of medicated patients) and antidepressants (14%) and, in Norway, neuroleptics (52%) and psychostimulants (24%).