Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adolescents have experienced an anger attack that involved threatening violence, destroying property or engaging in violence toward others at some point in their lives. These severe attacks of uncontrollable anger are much more common among adolescents than previously recognized, says a new study led by researchers from Harvard Medical School finds.
Not sure how they mean 'previously recognized', other than that kids lie in surveys and seem to have lied less on this one. Teens have always been volatile, that 'out of control' hormone idea, they just came up with a science-y name for what everyone knows; Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED).
The study, based on the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement, a national face-to-face household survey of 10,148 U.S. adolescents, found that nearly two-thirds of adolescents in the U.S. reported having a history of anger attacks. It also found that one in 12 young people—close to six million adolescents — either honestly reported or exaggerated enough to meet criteria for a diagnosis of IED, a syndrome characterized by persistent uncontrollable anger attacks not accounted for by other mental disorders.
Clinical IED (what used to be called a bad temper) has an average onset in late childhood and tends to be quite persistent through the middle years of life - later in life it tends to fade because it is easier to get your butt kicked as an old man. It is associated with the later onset of numerous other problems, including depression and substance abuse, according to senior author Ronald Kessler, McNeil Family Professor of Health Care Policy at HMS and leader of the team that carried out the study. Yet only 6.5 percent of adolescents with IED received professional treatment for their anger attacks.
Survey findings indicate that IED is under-treated: although 37.8 percent of youths with IED obtained treatment for emotional problems in the 12 months prior to the study interview, only 6.5 percent received treatment specifically for anger. The researchers argue for the importance of identifying and treating IED early, perhaps through school-based violence prevention programs.
"If we can detect IED early and intervene with effective treatment right away, we can prevent a substantial amount of future violence perpetration and associated psychopathology," Kessler said.
To be diagnosed with IED, an individual must have had three episodes of impulsive aggressiveness "grossly out of proportion to any precipitating psychosocial stressor," at any time in their life, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The investigators used an even more stringent definition of IED, requiring that adolescents not meet criteria for other mental disorders associated with aggression, including bipolar disorder, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder. As a result, researchers found that 1 in 12 adolescents met criteria for IED.
The results were in Archives of General Psychiatry.
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