Prevalence of mental disorder in female remand prisons

High rates of undetected mental disorder have been reported in male remand prisons. Little is known about the levels of mental disorder that are undet ected among female remand prisoners. The aims of the study were to assess t he prevalence of mental disorder in newly remanded female prisoners and the efficacy of the prison health screen at identifying mental disorder. To ac hieve these aims consecutive female remand prisoners were screened for ment al disorder at reception to prison. Diagnosis of mental disorder was compar ed with the findings from the standard prison health screen. There were 227 (59%) women who had at least one mental disorder (excluding substance depe ndence), of whom 42 (11%) were psychotic. The prison reception screening id entified 81 women as having a mental disorder, and nine of them were psycho tic. These results lead us to conclude that the prevalence of mental disord er, including psychoses, is very high in this population. The existing pris on reception screening does not identify the majority of cases of mental di sorder.