Cargando…

Prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders among children attending primary health care centers in Mosul, Iraq: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Children and adolescents are more vulnerable to the affects of war and violence than adults. At the time of initiation of this study, nothing was known about the prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders. The aim of the present study is to measure the point prevalenc...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Al-Jawadi, Asma A, Abdul-Rhman, Shatha
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2007
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2072950/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17910748
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-7-274
_version_ 1782137809032708096
author Al-Jawadi, Asma A
Abdul-Rhman, Shatha
author_facet Al-Jawadi, Asma A
Abdul-Rhman, Shatha
author_sort Al-Jawadi, Asma A
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Children and adolescents are more vulnerable to the affects of war and violence than adults. At the time of initiation of this study, nothing was known about the prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders. The aim of the present study is to measure the point prevalence of mental disorders among children of 1–15 years age in the city of Mosul, Iraq. METHODS: A cross-sectional study design was adopted. Four primary health care centers were chosen consecutively as a study setting. The subjects of the present study were mothers who came to the primary health care center for vaccination of their children. The chosen mothers were included by systematic sampling randomization. All children (aged 1–15) that each mother had were considered in the interview and examination. RESULTS: Out of 3079 children assessed, 1152 have childhood mental disorders, giving a point prevalence of 37.4%, with a male to female ratio of to 1.22:1. The top 10 disorders among the examined children are post-traumatic stress disorder (10.5%), enuresis (6%), separation anxiety disorder (4.3%), specific phobia (3.3%) stuttering and refusal to attend school (3.2% each), learning and conduct disorders (2.5% each), stereotypic movement (2.3%) and feeding disorder in infancy or early childhood (2.0%). Overall, the highest prevalence of mental disorders was among children 10–15 years old (49.2%) while the lowest was among 1–5 year olds (29.1%). Boys are more affected than girls (40.2% and 33.2%, respectively). CONCLUSION: Childhood mental disorders are a common condition highly prevalent amongst the children and early adolescents in Mosul. Data from the present study mirrors the size of the problem in local community. Several points deserve attention, the most important of which include giving care at the community level, educating the public on mental health, involving communities and families, monitoring community mental health indicators, and providing treatment at primary health care level.
format Text
id pubmed-2072950
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2007
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-20729502007-11-10 Prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders among children attending primary health care centers in Mosul, Iraq: a cross-sectional study Al-Jawadi, Asma A Abdul-Rhman, Shatha BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Children and adolescents are more vulnerable to the affects of war and violence than adults. At the time of initiation of this study, nothing was known about the prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders. The aim of the present study is to measure the point prevalence of mental disorders among children of 1–15 years age in the city of Mosul, Iraq. METHODS: A cross-sectional study design was adopted. Four primary health care centers were chosen consecutively as a study setting. The subjects of the present study were mothers who came to the primary health care center for vaccination of their children. The chosen mothers were included by systematic sampling randomization. All children (aged 1–15) that each mother had were considered in the interview and examination. RESULTS: Out of 3079 children assessed, 1152 have childhood mental disorders, giving a point prevalence of 37.4%, with a male to female ratio of to 1.22:1. The top 10 disorders among the examined children are post-traumatic stress disorder (10.5%), enuresis (6%), separation anxiety disorder (4.3%), specific phobia (3.3%) stuttering and refusal to attend school (3.2% each), learning and conduct disorders (2.5% each), stereotypic movement (2.3%) and feeding disorder in infancy or early childhood (2.0%). Overall, the highest prevalence of mental disorders was among children 10–15 years old (49.2%) while the lowest was among 1–5 year olds (29.1%). Boys are more affected than girls (40.2% and 33.2%, respectively). CONCLUSION: Childhood mental disorders are a common condition highly prevalent amongst the children and early adolescents in Mosul. Data from the present study mirrors the size of the problem in local community. Several points deserve attention, the most important of which include giving care at the community level, educating the public on mental health, involving communities and families, monitoring community mental health indicators, and providing treatment at primary health care level. BioMed Central 2007-10-02 /pmc/articles/PMC2072950/ /pubmed/17910748 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-7-274 Text en Copyright © 2007 Al-Jawadi and Abdul-Rhman; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Al-Jawadi, Asma A
Abdul-Rhman, Shatha
Prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders among children attending primary health care centers in Mosul, Iraq: a cross-sectional study
title Prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders among children attending primary health care centers in Mosul, Iraq: a cross-sectional study
title_full Prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders among children attending primary health care centers in Mosul, Iraq: a cross-sectional study
title_fullStr Prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders among children attending primary health care centers in Mosul, Iraq: a cross-sectional study
title_full_unstemmed Prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders among children attending primary health care centers in Mosul, Iraq: a cross-sectional study
title_short Prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders among children attending primary health care centers in Mosul, Iraq: a cross-sectional study
title_sort prevalence of childhood and early adolescence mental disorders among children attending primary health care centers in mosul, iraq: a cross-sectional study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2072950/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17910748
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-7-274
work_keys_str_mv AT aljawadiasmaa prevalenceofchildhoodandearlyadolescencementaldisordersamongchildrenattendingprimaryhealthcarecentersinmosuliraqacrosssectionalstudy
AT abdulrhmanshatha prevalenceofchildhoodandearlyadolescencementaldisordersamongchildrenattendingprimaryhealthcarecentersinmosuliraqacrosssectionalstudy