Prevalence of psychiatry disorders among prisoners of Sanandaj central jail, western part of Iran

ntroduction:Studying mental health status of prisoners and presenting mental health services are considered very important. This study was planned to investigate personality disorders of prisoners of the central jail in Sanandaj. In this cross-sectional descriptive study, the statistical community included prisoners of central jail in Sanandaj with more than six months of conviction and one month in prison throughout the year (May 2003- Nov 2004) and sample size contained 208 persons entered in to study. After permission of ethics committee and taking satisfaction of prisoners, psychiatric disorders particularly personality disorders were evaluated twice in clinical interview by a psychiatrist. The received data were analyzed by SPSS software and χ 2 test. Eighty eight percents of the participants were males. The highest prevalence was observed among 20-40 years-old subjects (51.4%). Of all subjects 40.4% were single, 48.1% were married, and 11.5% were divorced. 79.3% of the subjects did not have high school diploma. Total prevalence of personality disorders among subjects was 55.8% out of which 75.9% (42.3% of total) included antisocial personality disorder and 24.1% (13.5% of total) contained borderline personality disorder. Twenty six percents of subjects showed psychiatry disorders in axis I. A significant relationship was observed between the prevalence of personality disorders and prisoner's age and sex (P=0.003, P=0.004 respectively).More than 50% of prisoners suffered from personality disorders. Most common personality disorders were antisocial and borderline disorder, respectively.