Many communities have created specialized mental health courts (MHCs) to reduce unnecessary criminal justice involvement of persons with mental disorders. Although MHCs have shown favorable public safety outcomes, such as reducing risk for criminal recidivism and violent behavior, there has been little study of issues important to consumers, such as life satisfaction. This study prospectively evaluated the association between MHC participation and life satisfaction using data from 140 participants in a quasi-experimental research project on the San Francisco MHC. A fixed-effects regression model was used to examine whether MHC involvement predicted life satisfaction at 6-month follow-up while controlling for baseline life satisfaction, age, gender, and schizophrenia diagnosis. MHC involvement, baseline life satisfaction, and schizophrenia diagnosis significantly predicted life satisfaction at 6-months. Although the public safety benefits of MHCs are important, the present study also shows the potential for MHC to enhance important outcomes such as life satisfaction.

中文翻译：

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心理健康法院和生活满意度的前瞻性研究。

许多社区建立了专门的精神卫生法院，以减少精神障碍患者不必要的刑事司法介入。尽管MHC已显示出良好的公共安全成果，例如降低了犯罪再犯和暴力行为的风险，但对消费者重要的问题（如生活满意度）的研究很少。这项研究使用来自旧金山MHC的一项准实验研究项目中的140名参与者的数据，前瞻性地评估了MHC参与与生活满意度之间的关联。使用固定效应回归模型检查MHC参与是否预测6个月随访时的生活满意度，同时控制基线生活满意度，年龄，性别和精神分裂症的诊断。MHC参与度，基线生活满意度，精神分裂症的诊断显着预测了6个月的生活满意度。尽管MHC的公共安全利益很重要，但本研究还表明MHC可以增强重要成果（例如生活满意度）的潜力。