Friday, February 26, 2016

The World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry (WFSBP) Guidelines for The Treatment of Adolescent Sexual Offenders with Paraphilic Disorders

The primary aim of these guidelines was to evaluate the role of pharmacological agents in the treatment of adolescents with paraphilic disorders who are also sexual offenders or at-risk of sexual offending. Psychotherapeutic and psychosocial treatments were also reviewed. Adolescents with paraphilic disorders specifically present a different therapeutic challenge as compared to adults. In part, the challenge relates to adolescents being in various stages of puberty and development, which may limit the use of certain pharmacological agents due to their potential side effects. In addition, most of the published treatment programmes have used cognitive behavioural interventions, family therapies and psychoeducational interventions. Psychological treatment is predicated in adolescents on the notion that sexually deviant behaviour can be controlled by the offender, and that more adaptive behaviours can be learned.

The main purposes of these guidelines are to improve the quality of care and to aid physicians in their clinical decisions. These guidelines brought together different expert views and involved an extensive literature research. Each treatment recommendation was evaluated and discussed with respect to the strength of evidence for efficacy, safety, tolerability and feasibility. An algorithm is proposed for the treatment of paraphilic disorders in adolescent sexual offenders or those who are at risk...

In summary: Psychosocial education was an unclear combination of CBT and education mainly focused on sexual attitude and the improvement of victim empathy. Only four studies (Hains et al., ; Graves et al.; Lab et al. ; Heran ) had comparison groups receiving non-specific treatment or a waiting-list control group. Psychosocial education treatments were principally delivered in peer group settings. In total, more than 500 male adolescent sexual offenders (no females) were included in these programmes. Recidivism rates were used as outcome measures in about half of studies, 8–20% recidivism for sexual offences was observed depending on the duration of the follow-up (10 years when the recidivism rate was 20%). In the other studies different outcome measures were used and cannot be compared except for victim empathy, which was improved. Generally, due to the various and uncontrolled study designs used, the results were not convincing...

In summary: This combination of well-structured CBT and family therapy seems very promising, especially for sexual offences but has only been studied by one North American group. It needs to be replicated by other groups. The studies were randomised and the comparison groups were using, in most cases, CBT as usual, a hundred adolescents (mainly sexual offenders, including three females) were receiving MST...

In summary: Psychosocial education was an unclear combination of CBT and education mainly focused on sexual attitude and the improvement of victim empathy. Only four studies (Hains et al., ; Graves et al.; Lab et al. ; Heran ) had comparison groups receiving non-specific treatment or a waiting-list control group. Psychosocial education treatments were principally delivered in peer group settings. In total, more than 500 male adolescent sexual offenders (no females) were included in these programmes. Recidivism rates were used as outcome measures in about half of studies, 8–20% recidivism for sexual offences was observed depending on the duration of the follow-up (10 years when the recidivism rate was 20%). In the other studies different outcome measures were used and cannot be compared except for victim empathy, which was improved. Generally, due to the various and uncontrolled study designs used, the results were not convincing...

From this review we may conclude that for the treatment of adolescent sexual offenders:
  • overall, there is a low level of scientific evidence;
  • randomised controlled trials are lacking, which can be attributed to the logistic, legal and ethical challenges faced by researchers on such sensitive social issues (Långström et al. 2013);
  • research focused on pharmacological treatment is also lacking;
  • the effectiveness of segregated treatment units for juvenile sexual offenders has not been proven; however, it is often necessary for the juvenile to be temporarily placed outside of his family home when he has perpetrated against family members.
The study results indicate the following useful trends:
  • when pre- and post-evaluation is available, it is in favour of the treatment group (as in adults), particularly in juvenile sexual offenders at moderate risk of reoffending;
  • drop outs of treatment programmes do worse in the long term than sexual offenders who completed the programme (as in adults);
  • differences between “older” and “younger” adolescents are suggested (Hunter and Goodwin, 1992);
  • information concerning potential adverse outcomes of treatment is not available;
  • motivation for treatment is generally not assessed. Due to the high rate of treatment non-compliance, incorporating into pre-treatment and treatment programmes strategies that minimise attrition may be helpful (Reitzel and Carbonell 2006). In general, adjudicated youths are more motivated for treatment; and
  • finally, the important roles that caregiver discipline and youth association with deviant peers play in the development and maintenance of antisocial behaviour have been supported consistently by an extensive correlational and longitudinal literature (Loeber & Farrington 1998)... 
Full article at:   http://goo.gl/FJauTf
By:  Florence Thibaut, a , * John M. W. Bradford, b Peer Briken, c Flora De La Barra, d Frank Häßler, e Paul Cosyns, f and on behalf of the WFSBP Task Force on Sexual Disorders
a University Hospital Cochin, Faculty of Medicine Paris Descartes, INSERM U 894 CPN, Paris, France
b University of Ottawa, Institute of Mental Health Research, Division of Forensic Psychiatry, Queen’s University, Clinical Director, Forensic Treatment Unit, Brockville Mental Health Centre, Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, Brockville, Ontario, Canada
c Institute for Sex Research and Forensic Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany
d East Psychiatry and Mental Health Department, University of Chile, Clinica Las Condes, Chile
e Clinic for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Medicine of Rostock, Rostock, Germany
f University Forensic Centre (University Hospital of Antwerp), Belgium
* Chair: Florence Thibaut (France). Co-Chairs: John W. Bradford (Canada), Paul Cosyns (Belgium). Secretary: Peer Briken (Germany). Members: Flora de la Barra (Chile), Yesim Taneli (Turkey), Harvey Gordon (UK), Ariel Rosler (Israel), Elie Witztum (Israel).
CONTACT Professor Florence Thibaut ;  rf.phpa@tuabiht.ecnerolf, University Hospital Cochin (site Tarnier), Department of Psychiatry and Addictive disorders, 89 rue d’Assas, 75006Paris, France.
World J Biol Psychiatry. 2016 Jan 2; 17(1): 2–38. Published online 2015 Nov 23. doi:  10.3109/15622975.2015.1085598





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