Controlled study into the effectiveness of individual client-centred counselling for young offenders in residential care

This study is toe first documented account in the British Isles of an evaluation of the effectiveness of client-centred counselling with young offenders in secure residential care. It is a test of Rogers' (1957) position on the 'necessary and sufficient' conditions of therapeutic personality change within a counselling relationship. Forty teenage male offenders, the subjects of Training School Orders, were randomly allocated in equal numbers to either an experimental or control group. Boys in the experimental group received weekly individual sessions of client-centred counselling over a seven month period. Boys in the control group received no formal counselling but were shown to have similar intellectual, personality, socio-economic and criminal backgrounds to those in the experimental group. It was hypothesised that counselled subjects would show more positive outcomes than control subjects over a range of measures relating to criminal behaviour and self-conception. The results indicated that the counselled subjects had a significantly lower rate of offending and a srnaller range of offences over a mean follow-up period of 2.5 years. They were also licensed from the institution significantly earlier and spent less time in custody during a one year follow-up after counselling was completed. Self-conception measures gave less clear-cut results. The direction of change towards better adjustment favoured the counselled subjects but the magnitude was often small. Those counselled subjects with most positive behaviour change tended to have significantly improved self-evaluation, less self/ideal self discrepancy and more variation on 'actual' self concept compared to pre-counselling. The results are discussed in the context of client-centred theory, methodological adequacy of the experimental design, and their application to the future treatment of young offenders in secure residential care.

Systematic review investigating the reporting of comorbidities and medication in randomized controlled trials of people with dementia

Objectives: dementia is a debilitating condition characterised by global loss of cognitive and intellectual functioning, which reduces social and occupational performance. This population frequently presents with medical co-morbidities such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The CONSORT statement outlines recommended guidance on reporting of participant characteristics in clinical trials. It is, however, unclear how much these are adhered to in trials assessing people with dementia. This paper assesses the reporting of medical co-morbidities and prescribed medications for people with dementia within randomised controlled trial (RCT) reports. Design: a systematic review of the published literature from the databases AMED, CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Clinical Trial Registry from 1 January 1997 to 9 January 2014 was undertaken in order to identify RCTs detailing baseline medical co-morbidities and prescribed medications . Eligible studies were appraised using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) RCT appraisal tool, and descriptive statistical analyses were calculated to determine point prevalence. Results: nine trials, including 1474 people with dementia, were identified presenting medical co-morbidity data. These indicated neurological disorders ( prevalence 91%), vascular disorders (prevalence 91%), cardiac disorders ( prevalence 74%) and ischaemic cerebrovascular disease ( prevalence 53%) were most frequently seen. Conclusions: published RCTs poorly report medical co-morbidities and medications for people with dementia. Future trials should include the report of these items to allow interpretation of whether the results are generalisable to frailer older populations.

Personality profile of male adolescents with Tourette syndrome:a controlled study

Tourette syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by multiple tics and commonly associated with behavioral problems, especially obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The presence of specific personality traits has been documented in adult clinical populations with Tourette syndrome but has been underresearched in younger patients. We assessed the personality profiles of 17 male adolescents with Tourette syndrome and 51 age- and gender-matched healthy controls using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent version, along with a standardized psychometric battery. All participants scored within the normal range across all Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent version scales. Patients with Tourette syndrome scored significantly higher than healthy controls on the Obsessiveness Content Scale only (P = .046). Our findings indicate that younger male patients with Tourette syndrome do not report abnormal personality traits and have similar personality profiles to healthy peers, with the exception of obsessionality traits, which are likely to be related to the presence of comorbid obsessive compulsive symptoms rather than tics.

Methods and processes for development of a CONSORT extension for reporting pilot randomized controlled trials

Peer reviewed