Imprisonment may pose a risk for unintended effects such as deterioration of psychiatric symptoms. Therefore, it is pivotal to understand the relation between imprisonment and the course of psychiatric symptoms, but previous studies are inconclusive. The current study followed up the psychiatric symptoms of newly admitted remand prisoners to one Dutch remand prison using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and also studied possible related pre-existing variables. On average we found an overall slight—yet clinically marginal—improvement of psychiatric, in particular affective symptoms. One in three prisoners deteriorated and prisoners with psychotic disorders less often deteriorated. Other variables were not related. Overall, psychiatric symptoms remain stable over time during early remand imprisonment independent of most psychiatric disorders. The context in the Dutch prison studied appears to be adequately organized in terms of handling psychiatric stability, but we notice that prison contexts may vary to a large extend.

监禁可能会带来意想不到的影响，例如精神症状恶化。因此，了解监禁与精神症状过程之间的关系至关重要，但之前的研究尚无定论。目前的研究使用简明精神病评定量表（BPRS）跟踪了荷兰一所还押监狱新收押的还押囚犯的精神症状，并研究了可能相关的预先存在的变量。平均而言，我们发现精神症状，特别是情感症状总体上略有改善，但在临床上是微乎其微的。三分之一的囚犯病情恶化，患有精神病的囚犯病情恶化的情况较少。其他变量不相关。全面的，在早期还押期间，精神症状随着时间的推移保持稳定，与大多数精神疾病无关。所研究的荷兰监狱环境在处理精神稳定性方面似乎组织得很好，但我们注意到监狱环境可能有很大差异。