Abstract
Purpose. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the relationship of age group, gender, and race/ethnicity with each of six BASIS-24 subscales for adolescent psychiatric inpatients. This population has not had normative inpatient data collected using BASIS-24, and this study is an attempt at providing important outcome measurement data on hospitalized adolescents. Method. A self-report symptom severity survey was administered at admission and discharge to a sample of 422 adolescents, ages 14 to 17. After controlling for days hospitalized, BASIS-24 subscales at Time 1, and the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) at Time 1, statistical analyses including Pearson correlations, paired t-tests and adjusted factorial analyses of covariance were performed on variables of gender, age group and race, using each (of 6) BASIS-24 subscales at Time 2, and an overall composite subscale average. Results. Statistically significant differences emerged indicating that White, Latino, and African American adolescents had positive clinical outcomes across all dimensions. Multiracial adolescents had no statistically significant improvement in two domains. Two triple interactions were revealed on gender, race, and age group in domains of depression and substance abuse. Younger African American females emerged as having greater functional difficulty at the time of discharge on five domains. Main effects of race and gender affected White and African American adolescents. Discussion. The overall results confirm the instrument's validity, based on pre and postscores as well as gender and ethnic differences. Good reliability of BASIS-24 subscales was validated by high Cronbach's alpha, demonstrating internal consistency reliability with this population. Further, BASIS-24 demonstrated applicability and captured diagnostic sensitivity in assessing important differences. Younger adolescents demonstrated higher severity scores than older, and females had consistently greater symptom severity than males. Differentiation of race/ethnicity emerged in all domains across groups, with the exception of Multiracial adolescents in interpersonal relations and self-harm. African American females consistently reported significantly higher symptom levels than other adolescents at discharge in multiple functional areas. Results suggest that instrumentation and research consistent with adolescent measures must be sensitive to culture and ethnicity, contextual and environmental differences in order to be efficacious in affecting adolescent symptomology and functioning.