Social, familial and personal characteristics distinguishing conduct disordered girls and boys
This study aims to identify the social, familial and personal characteristics distinguishing conduct disordered girls from conduct disordered boys. Forty seven girls and 134 boys, aged 12 to 17, exhibiting a conduct disorder and followed by the youth centers of Quebec compose the sample. The first objective of the study is to compare girls and boys on socioeconomic characteristics, familial characteristics, parent-adolescent relationship, parents characteristics and social and personal characteristics of the youth. The second objective of the study is to identify among the variables discriminating girls from boys, those that are the most associated to girls. Results indicated that girls differ from boys on several variables including family instability, sexual abuse antecedents, parent-adolescent relationship problems, conduct disorders symptoms type, depression, opposition, suicidal thoughts and attempts. Those results suggest that a differential intervention should be offered to girls. This intervention may target specific objectives. These specific objectives are discuss.