Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the prevalence of mental health disorder symptoms in a sample of prisoners in Trinidadian prisons who volunteered to attend anger management groups. Design/methodology/approach A survey was conducted using the 90-item Symptom Check-List revised (SCL-90-R) which was administered to prisoners in groups within the prison system. In total 132 prisoners (about 9 per cent of the prison population) completed the measure. The effect sizes of prisoners’ similarities to a psychiatric inpatient group and their differences from a non-patient group were used to identify symptoms most indicative of pathology in these prisoners. Findings The results on the SCL-90-R indicate that this group of prisoners (77.3 per cent male) had scores of psychiatric symptomatology that were much closer to a psychiatric inpatient population rather than to a general community population. Practical implications These results suggest there may be unmet psychiatric need among the population served by the prison services in Trinidad. It is not known how this sample differs from the general prison population. However, the unmet psychiatric need in this specific population suggests that a greater mental health focus in health services within prisons is to be considered to meet these needs. Originality/value These data suggest that there are significant mental health issues for some prisoners in Trinidad and possibly more generally in similar prison systems within the Caribbean and this may have significant implications for the treatment of prisoners and the delivery of mental health services in these prisons.

中文翻译：

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特立尼达监狱中用于愤怒管理的一些囚犯的心理健康困难患病率

目的本文的目的是评估自愿参加愤怒管理小组的特立尼达监狱中样本中精神健康障碍症状的患病率。设计/方法/方法使用修订后的90项症状检查表（SCL-90-R）进行调查，该调查表是对监狱系统内的囚犯进行管理的。共有132名囚犯（约占监狱人口的9％）完成了这项措施。囚犯与精神科住院患者的相似性及其与非住院患者的差异的影响大小用于确定最能说明这些囚犯病理状况的症状。调查结果SCL-90-R上的结果表明这批囚犯（77。3％的男性）的精神症状学分数更接近精神病住院患者而不是普通社区患者。实际意义这些结果表明，特立尼达监狱服务的人口中可能没有满足精神病患者的需求。尚不清楚该样本与一般监狱人口有何不同。但是，由于这一特殊人群的精神病需求未得到满足，因此，应考虑在监狱内的医疗服务中更加重视精神卫生，以满足这些需求。