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 ref usal who were treated as outpatients in order to examine the use of ho spitalization in the treatment of this symptom presentation. The resul ts showed the inpatient group had significantly more depressive disord er, a greater number of diagnoses, more severe symptoms, were more lik ely to reside in single-parent homes, and were more likely to have bee n physically abused.