ABSTRACT

The number of forensic cases in childhood and adolescence is increasing. However, the data on the characteristics of the forensic psychiatric evaluations in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry in our country are extremely limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the sociodemographic characteristics of children and adolescents who had applied to the child psychiatry outpatient clinic in Konya in the last 5 years.

In this study, archive files and reports of 523 cases referred to Necmettin Erbakan University Meram School of Medicine Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry between January 2014 and February 2019 were analyzed retrospectively. The age, gender, family structure, educational background, place of residence, intelligence levels and reasons for referring these children, the type of crime committed by the offenders, and the types of abuse in the victims were evaluated.

Of the cases admitted to our forensic psychiatry outpatient clinic, 33.7% (n=176) were evaluated for delinquency, 39.8% (n=208) for sexual abuse and 26.6% (n=139) for other reasons. The frequency of referral was significantly higher in the sexual abuse category in girls and in the delinquency category in boys (p<0.001). School attendance was found to be higher in children who were victims of sexual abuse (p=0.025). A significant relationship was found between having a broken family and drug-related crimes (p<0.001).

In our study, it was shown that most of the reasons for forensic application were sexual abuse in Konya and these children frequently attended the school. Attending the school seems to be extremely important in revealing abuse through the education and guidance support. In our study, the relationship between drug-related delinquency and family type was demonstrated. These data suggest that environmental factors may have a role in juvenile delinquency in the context of crime types. Future studies on the crime types in children and adolescents are needed.