A comparison of inpatient and outpatient school refusers.

This study describes children and adolescents with school refusal who were hospitalized and compares them to a matched group with school refusal who were treated as outpatients in order to examine the use of hospitalization in the treatment of this symptom presentation. The results showed the inpatient group had significantly more depressive disorder, a greater number of diagnoses, more severe symptoms, were more likely to reside in single-parent homes, and were more likely to have been physically abused.