Risk of Unsuccessful Program Completion for Students with Serious Emotional/Behavioral Disorders: An Epidemiologic Risk Analysis

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify risk factors associated with unsuccessful discharge status of students with serious emotional/behavioral disorders (E/BD) from a secondary-level, therapeutic, day-treatment program. In addition, this article describes and demonstrates the effective use of epidemiologic analysis as a program-evaluation method by comparing risks associated with identified characteristics of the E/BD population to program completion status. Results indicated significant differences in successful program completion related to individual variables, specifically (a) student substance abuse, (b) involvement with juvenile services, and (c) family-living status. Further, we found that additive effects of several variable pairs greatly increased the risk of unsuccessful program outcomes. Implications for E/BD program development and ongoing program evaluation with epidemiologic analysis are discussed.