A study of danger perception in adolescents in normal and endogenous mental pathology

We describe a pilot study of perception of the environment danger (the content and the degree of threat) in health adolescents and mental pathology. We provide a complex of diagnostic techniques for the assessment of categorization of ambiguous safe/unsafe situations, ways to respond to threats and aggression, developed by the authors. The complex includes two parts: 1) a study of aggression (Wagner Hand test, Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration study), 2) danger perception of different origin study (modified Drawn Apperception Test, incomplete sentences (authors set), danger assessment based on photos). The study involved adolescents aged 13-17 years. The experimental group consisted: 22 patients (13 boys) of Mental Health Research Center and Scientific and Practical Center for Children and Adolescents Mental health with diagnoses of schizophrenia, schizotypal personality disorder, and personality disorder. The control group: 24 pupils of general academic school (13 boys) in Moscow. The study identified structure of subjective danger in adolescents, key dangers, differences in the perception of danger in adolescents in health and disease.

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