TRENDS IN APPROPRIATE ADULT FUNCTIONING AND BIASING RISKS IN LONGITUDINAL FOLLOW-UPS OF BOYS WITH CONDUCT DISORDERS

Multiple telephone follow-up interviews have been conducted for a numb er of years for boys with conduct disorders treated at the Saint Franc is Academy. These follow-ups are done 2 years and 5 years after treatm ent completion and again after the boy's 24th birthday. An overall app ropriate adult functioning (AAF) score is obtained for each boy contac ted. Because the attrition rate is very low, these data provide an opp ortunity to investigate the stability of treatment effects over time. A substantial attempt was made to investigate the possibility that mea n group changes in AAF over time might be due to differential attritio n effects. Two separate analyses indicated that an attrition effect wa s not a major influence in AAF score changes. AAF was relatively stabl e between the 2- and 5-year follow-ups and showed some improvement.