Mental and Behavioural Disorders of Childhood and Adolescence: An Observational Study

Background: There is overlap of symptoms in psychiatric disorders, especially in mental and behavioural disorders of childhood and adolescence. Half of all lifetime psychiatric disorders tend to arise by age 14 years and three fourths of them arise by age 24 years.

Aim: To study the various types of mental and behavioural disorders of childhood and adolescence, and to find out comorbidities within and across the types.

Methods: An observational cross-sectional study was carried out over a period of one year in the psychiatry department of a tertiary care general hospital. The psychiatric diagnoses according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) tenth revision of the International Statistical Classification of Health and Related Problems (ICD-10) were categorised into type 1 (depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and somatoform disorder), type 2 (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and conduct disorder), type 3 (mental retardation, developmental disorders of speech and language, and scholastic skills, and pervasive developmental disorders). Descriptive statistics was used with frequency and percentage.

Results: Total sample size was 137. Children and adolescents were almost equally distributed. Boys were more than girls. Type 3 disorders were maximum. Adolescents had mostly type 1 disorders. Children had mostly type 3 disorders. Girls had almost same number of type 1 and type 3 disorders. Boys had mostly type 3 disorders. Within group comorbidity was mostly with type 3 disorders. Across group comorbidity was highest in type2-type 3 disorders.

Conclusion: Mental and behavioural disorders in childhood and adolescence do vary according to age and sex, and their recognition will help in the early diagnosis and proper management.