Background:About 9 million people are imprisoned worldwide, but the number with mental disorders is unknown.Aim of the study:Determination of the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among female prisoners of violent crimes inside one of the Egyptian prisons .
Patients and Method:The study was done in Tanta General Prison, in a certain period of time “ Aug.2014 - Jun.2015".The sample of the study was 134 female prisoners.
Instruments and procedures:First all the sample were examined with semi – structured interview by the researcher and diagnosed according to DSM IV TR .Then the sample had three questionnaires, ( Ezynk – IQ – Family Economic Social Cultural Level ).These data underwent statistical analysis, and then the researcher described them in tables to correlate between the socio-demographic, clinical variables, and questionnaires of the study.Results:The results of semi-structured interview had revealed that the majority of the sample were suffering from psychiatric disorders with percentage represented (61.9%). The most common disorders were substance abuse (35.07%), histrionic personality disorder (24.6%), major depressive disorder (17.9%), and borderline personality disorder (15.6%).The results of Ezynk represented that psychotic personality has been found among female violent prisoners.The results of IQ represented marked decrease among the majority of the sample.The results of Family Economic Social Cultural Level Questionnaire represented marked decrease among the majority of the sample.Conlusion:The psychiatric disorders are markedly increased among the female prisoners who were imprisoned due to violent crimes