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The prevalence of intermittent explosive disorder (IED) in adolescents is uncertain. These researchers analyzed data on 6843 adolescents from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication Adolescent Supplement, which involved structured interviews by trained laypeople. The study defined IED as three anger attacks within a specific period, with the anger attacks being disproportionate to the precipitant, involving breaking things or hurting or threatening to hurt someone, and apparently not being caused by depression, a substance, or an illness.
Most adolescents (63%) reported at least one anger attack, and 7.8% of the entire sample met criteria for IED. The high ratio of lifetime to 12-month IED suggested that IED persisted throughout adolesce…