Abstract :
Background: Mental health problems have increased considerably among adolescents in the past 20-30
years. According to the present estimates by World Health Organization, mental illnesses are the leading
causes of disability adjusted life years globally.
Objectives: To find out prevalence of psychiatric disorders among school going adolescents and to find its
association with socio demographic variables.
Methods and Materials: It is a school based, rural community setting with cross-sectional design. Study
was conducted in 600 students (300 males and 300 females) studying in class 8th to 12th. A pre-designed,
pre-tested tool Symptom Checklist 90 Revised containing 90 items was used to screen these students. The
global severity index (GSI) was used to measure the extent or depth of individual`s psychiatric disturbances.
Descriptive statistics and chi square test were used for statistical analysis.
Results: Prevalence of psychiatric morbidity was found to be 35%. It increased statistical significantly with
age. Females had more problems as compared to males. Maximum number of students with psychiatric
morbidity were from class 12 (43%) and class 10 (37%) and from upper middle class (34.5%) followed by
middle class (35.3%).
Conclusion: It is concluded that more than one-third (35%) of adolescents who were apparently healthy
suffered from unnoticed mental health problems.
Keyword :
Adolescents, Prevalence, Psychiatric Morbidity