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Inside the nation’s largest mental health institution: a prevalence study in a state prison system

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Public Health, April 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (94th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (92nd percentile)

Mentioned by

news
3 news outlets
policy
2 policy sources
twitter
27 X users
wikipedia
1 Wikipedia page

Citations

dimensions_citation
132 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
294 Mendeley
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Title
Inside the nation’s largest mental health institution: a prevalence study in a state prison system
Published in
BMC Public Health, April 2017
DOI 10.1186/s12889-017-4257-0
Pubmed ID
Authors

Tala Al-Rousan, Linda Rubenstein, Bruce Sieleni, Harbans Deol, Robert B. Wallace

Abstract

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world which has created a public health crisis. Correctional facilities have become a front line for mental health care. Public health research in this setting could inform criminal justice reform. We determined prevalence rates for mental illnesses and related comorbidities among all inmates in a state prison system. Cross-sectional study using the Iowa Corrections Offender Network which contains health records of all inmates in Iowa. The point prevalence of both ICD-9 and DSM-IV codes for mental illnesses, timing of diagnosis and interval between incarceration and mental illness diagnosis were determined. The average inmate (N = 8574) age was 36.7 ± 12.4 years; 17% were ≥50 years. The majority of inmates were men (91%) and white (65%).Obesity was prevalent in 38% of inmates, and 51% had a history of smoking. Almost half of inmates were diagnosed with a mental illness (48%), of whom, 29% had a serious mental illness (41% of all females and 27% of all males), and 26% had a history of a substance use disorder. Females had higher odds of having both a mental illness and substance use disorder. Almost all mental illness diagnoses were first made during incarceration (99%). The mean interval to diagnosis of depression, anxiety, PTSD and personality disorders were 26, 24, 21 and 29 months respectively. Almost 90% of mental illnesses were recognized by the 6(th) year of incarceration. The mean interval from incarceration to first diagnosis (recognition) of a substance abuse history was 11 months. There is a substantial burden of mental illness among inmates. Racial, age and gender disparities in mental health care are coupled with a general delay in diagnosis and treatment. A large part of understanding the mental health problem in this country starts at prisons.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 27 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 294 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 294 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 41 14%
Student > Bachelor 39 13%
Student > Ph. D. Student 33 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 26 9%
Researcher 19 6%
Other 48 16%
Unknown 88 30%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Psychology 67 23%
Social Sciences 48 16%
Nursing and Health Professions 31 11%
Medicine and Dentistry 20 7%
Arts and Humanities 5 2%
Other 22 7%
Unknown 101 34%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 52. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 March 2024.
All research outputs
#801,826
of 25,328,635 outputs
Outputs from BMC Public Health
#834
of 16,989 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#16,290
of 316,587 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Public Health
#17
of 227 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,328,635 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 16,989 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.5. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 95% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 316,587 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 227 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.