Psychiatric adjustment to leaving school in adolescents with intellectual disability: a pilot study

The negotiation of stressful life cycle transitions may contribute to the h igher prevalence of psychiatric disorders amongst people with intellectual disability (ID). It is possible that leaving school at the age of 16 years might place particular psychological demands on adolescents, increasing the risk of psychiatric morbidity at a time when they are vulnerable as a resu lt of losing the links with health services sustained through school attend ance. The present pilot study was designed as a prospective cohort study to investigate whether there is an increase of psychiatric morbidity [rated w ith the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), and through semi-st ructured interviews with parents] in adolescents with ID at the time of the ir transition from school to adult education and services. Although there w as a high frequency (eight out of 10 subjects) of reported emotional and be havioural problems prior to transition, there was no increase or decrease i n psychiatric morbidity for the group as a whole during the 6 months after leaving school. However, there were marked individual differences in scores on the SDQ, which may be worth investigating in a larger study.