Clinical profile of child and adolescent patients attending a mental hospital OPD

Abstract

Background: Psychiatric morbidity profile of children and adolescents is very different from that of adults. These problems are rising but largely remain unreported. Very few studies have been carried out in this specialty of psychiatry.Methods: In this retrospective file review study, all child and adolescent patients attending the general psychiatry out-patient between January-August 2014 in a city of central India. Semi-structured socio-demographic and clinical profile collection performa and international classification of diseases-10 (ICD-10) were used as tool and statistical analysis was done by using SPSS 16.Results: The results showed that among total 2544 children presented during study period, 175 children (6.8%) had psychiatric morbidity. Most of them were in the age group of 11-16 years, from middle income group, illiterate, Hindu by religion and residing in urban locality. No significant sexual preference was found regarding distribution of the disorders. Mental retardation was commonest (n=112; 64%), without (n=42; 24%) and with co-morbidities (epilepsy n=42; 24%, behavioural disturbance n= 28; 16%) found to be the most prevalent disorder followed by epilepsy (7%), ADHD (5.7%), schizophrenia and other psychosis (5.7%), depression (4%) and autism 1.1% and then others.Conclusions: Mental and psychiatric services for children lag behind those for adults in developing countries. Also, a community based study can be a better study design in future.

Depression in Children and Adolescents: A Review of Indian studies

“…Some of these studies have given the clinic prevalence of depression, and others have given data for the point prevalence of affective disorders. [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] The age group has varied in different studies, and the usual range has been 0-18 years. The sample size of these studies has varied from 100 to 6109, and most of these studies have relied on the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) system (9 th or 10 th revision) for making the diagnosis.…”

“…Bipolar: 1.2% [11] Retrospective 175 4% [12] Retrospective 100 4%…”