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J Arboleda-Florez

Publications and source records attributed to J Arboleda-Florez.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1991

Antisocial burnout: an exploratory study.

The more flagrant aspects of Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD), particularly criminality, are thought to diminish or "burnout" after age 30. However, empirical evidence of burnout in clinically defined groups is lacking. This study explores burnout in a cohort of forensic psychiatric patients, aged 41 to 67, with clinically diagnosed DSM-III APD (N = 39). Conviction data revealed that criminality did appear to decline from age 27 onward, but not in a straightforward manner. Further, a significant portion of the cohort remained criminally active throughout most of their adult lives. Age did not appear to interact with crime class.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Predicting suicide behaviours in incarcerated settings.

Attempts to predict suicide behaviours have produced a number of useful clinical tools. Unfortunately, these have been largely designed with a specific psychiatric population or institutional setting in mind and are not easily transferred to an incarcerated setting. In 1983 the authors developed a suicide checklist which could be used to aid screening of new admissions to Remand Centres in the Province of Alberta. Studies completed to date have revealed this checklist to be a practical and reliable method of standardizing the suicide screening process. This paper presents findings from a study designed to evaluate the predictive power (discriminant validity) of the checklist. A stepwise multivariate framework is used to assess the overall ability of checklist items to discriminate a high risk group. As well, the relative importance of specific socio-demographic, clinical and historical variables is assessed. Data were collected on a cohort of consecutive admissions to the Edmonton Remand Centre during 1986. Findings reveal that marital status is the only direct statistical predictor of suicide risk. Inmates who had divorced or separated from a spouse were more likely to be active suicide risks at some time during their remand than those who were married or single. Symptom score was found to be generally predictive, however, closer assessment revealed this relationship to be heterogeneous across subgroups defined on the basis of certain criminological variables. The model which allowed for the interaction of clinical with criminological variables correctly discriminated 100% of the active suicide risks and 63% of inmates who had a prior history of suicide behaviours. The practical implications of these findings for suicide screening are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Criminalization of the mentally ill: Part I. Police perceptions.

This paper reports the findings from Phase I of an ongoing prospective, longitudinal study of mentally ill offenders. The study documents the nature, extent and location of mentally ill offenders in the criminal justice system in Southern Alberta, evaluates mechanisms which are used to identify mentally ill offenders in need of treatment, identifies existing psychiatric services available within the criminal justice system and documents their psychiatric service utilization patterns. A study cohort of 611 was identified at their time of arrest and followed through the justice process from initial detention until final release. Part I on this study focuses on the period of arrest. More specifically, police perceptions of disturbed behaviour are examined. The prevalence of police-identified offenders is reported and police judgments regarding possible causes of disturbed behaviour (that is, mental illness, drugs, alcohol) and recommendations for psychiatric treatment are examined. Discrepancies between official recommendations made by police to a bail magistrate (and recorded on the arrest report) and unofficial recommendations collected as part of the study are explained in terms of differing decision-making models; clinical versus legal. Finally, the importance of police perceptions concerning the presence of mental illness as opposed to substance abuse are identified as important factors which influence the decision to recommend psychiatric examinations.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Criminalization of the mentally ill: Part II. Initial detention.

In 1939 Penrose explained the correlation between crime and mental illness in terms of an administrative rather than an etiological link. Penrose's theory encompasses the idea that social standards for defining aberrant behaviour change as do the administrative facilities designed to control such behaviour. Social groups cope with individuals who display undesirable behaviour in one of two ways. They define the behaviour as incompetent and invoke the mental health system or they define the behaviour as criminal and employ the jail. Penrose documented an inverse relationship between these facilities whereby the population of mental hospitals increases as the population of jails decreases, and vice versa, depending on the prevailing laws, funding or stage of development of either system. The actual size of the population requiring institutional care, however, remains stable forcing individuals to transmigrate from one system to the other in order to obtain institutional support. Over the past two decades, increasing numbers of mentally ill have found their way into jails, however, little systematic evidence has been produced to document the process followed by these individuals as they move through the justice-correctional system, or how their psychiatric needs are met. The authors have conducted a prospective longitudinal investigation to document the transmigration of mental patients through the criminal justice system and have followed a cohort of individuals arrested in the City of Calgary during the month of October, 1984. Arresting officers were asked to complete a special study form to identify individuals who, in their perception, displayed mentally disordered behaviour during the arrest.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Development of a suicide screening instrument for use in a remand centre setting.

In penal settings it is important to be able to quickly discriminate which kinds of self-destructive behaviours carry a larger suicide potential and which inmates present a greater suicide risk. This paper is a preliminary report of the first phase of a suicide research project conducted at the Calgary Remand Centre, Calgary, Alberta which has entailed the development of a tool for screening potentially suicidal inmates. The Suicide Checklist was designed for use by the nursing staff of the Centre to provide a screening process which would be: (a) reliable; (b) valid (within the broad constraints and difficulties inherent in any attempt to predict dangerousness to self); (c) standardized; (d) quick and feasible to implement; and (e) a combination of clinical and past history variables. This paper identifies some of the issues which have surrounded the development of this tool and presents findings from an initial reliability study.

Humans↗
PubMed1987

Reibl v. Hughes: the consent issue.

Inviolability of the person is the basic principle underpinning the concept of consent to treatment. Although it is not a new concept, consent has become a major medico-legal issue because of a shift, within the doctor/patient relationship, towards more autonomy for the patient and less paternalism from the doctor. This change has been given further impetus by legal decisions such as Reibl v. Hughes and Hopp v. Lepp. In this paper the author reviews the nature of the changes and the impact of the legal decisions on the doctor/patient relationship. He concludes that a legal approach to consent is sterile if it is a substitute to open communication between the doctor and the patient, or to their acceptance of a principle of "equality of two participants". Consent is based on the basic principal of the inviolability of the person, that is, the right, at all times, of every individual not to have his body tampered with without his permission or agreement, and to be the whole decision-maker on matters that affect his physical integrity. This right is not absolute: it may be abrogated by the state for health or judicial reasons, or the person may not be in a position to exercise it, such as when unconscious or because of mental disability. This paper will review present Canadian laws on consent. It will contrast the legal approach to consent to the ethical-humanistic approach which could be developed within the context of the doctor/patient relationship.

Canada↗
PubMed1986

The readmission of psychotic patients to a general hospital psychiatry unit.

This article describes a retrospective study of patient readmissions to a psychiatric unit in a large teaching hospital. A cohort of 150 patients was identified and their demographic and clinical characteristics, their reason for admission, and their rehospitalization patterns examined. Patterns of readmission for the cohort do not suggest a "revolving door" syndrome. The role of the psychiatric unit of a general hospital in the rehospitalization of psychotic patients is discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

Amok.

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Adult↗
PubMed1978

Insanity defense in Canada.

The author has reviewed in this paper the difficulties in developing a more generally accepted test of criminal responsibility. Such difficulties are more clearly seen when studying the applicability of the criminal responsibility test in Canadian law, Section 16, which the author describes as a disguised M'Naghten rule. Finally it is agrued that, because of the strictures encountered in the application of M'Naghten, some alternative routes have been developed at the courtroom level, notably Section 215 of the Criminal Code which deals with provocation. Section 215 gives legal footing to emotional conditions, producing an impairment in an accused's ability to form intent.

Automatism↗
PubMed1976

Neonaticide.

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Adult↗
PubMed1975

A two-year review of court examinations.

This paper reports on a review of 518 Psychiatric Court Examination conducted at the Ottawa Court House in 1972-1973. Characteristics of the sample are described, and an attempt is made to relate the effects of some of these characteristics to decisions resulting from the psychiatric examination. It was concluded that those examinations help to identify obviously mentally distubed persons, advise the Court about the mental condition of people first appearing in Court, and do not unduly alter the legal process.

Age Factors↗