Evaluation of child and adolescent forensic cases within one year in Aydin city, in Turkey

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the features related with the referral reasons, sociodemographic features, diagnoses of mental disorders, treatment processes and criminal profiles of all the child and adolescent forensic cases who were referred to forensic medicine and child and adolescent psychiatry (CAP) clinics by judicial authorities to get forensic report in Aydin city as well as was to inference the general profile of this city for this age bracket. Methods: All the data from child and adolescent forensic cases referred to forensic medicine and CAP clinics throughout the year in order to be examined for a forensic report have been retrospectively analyzed. Results: One hundred and fifty of total 272 cases were female (42.3%) and 157 were male (57.7%) and the average age was determined as 13.46±2.3. All the cases were analyzed according to the crime types or referral reasons; 147 of them due to drifting into crime while 85 cases were referred due to sexual abuse. In the cases referred to CAP clinics, sexual abuse was the most populated reason with the number of 85 (31.6%). The most common referral reasons of the cases drifting into crime were theft and malicious injury with the numbers of 77 (52.4%) and 26 (17.7%) respectively among 147 cases. The most common mental disorder was the post-traumatic stress disorder among sexual abuse cases. Fifty percent point six of those cases have been initiated treatment however only 37.2% of the cases were detected as maintaining the treatment. Conclusion: The first step in the fight against child and adolescent forensic cases being sexually abused and drifted into crime is consciousness of the individual and familial characteristics of those children and the differences of these among other regions. New efforts which will be carried out in collaboration with health care institutions and other related departments are required in order to maintain psychiatric treatment and follow-up during the process of bringing those children to healthy individuals in society. [Anadolu Psikiyatri Derg 2013; 14(4.000): 369-377]