Prevalence of Mental disorders among Children and Teenagers in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran

Background: Paying attention to psychiatric disorder in childhood and adolescence is critical. It causes the occurrence of mental disorders in adulthood. The present study aimed to explore the frequency of mental disorders among children and adolescents in Zahedan City, Iran. Materials & Methods: This was a descriptive and cross-sectional study. Individuals aged between 6 and 18 years were included in this investigation. In total, 1003 children and adolescents were selected by the random cluster sampling method. To collect the required information, in addition to demographic information, the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS-PL) for school-age Children-Present and Lifetime version was employed. The obtained data were analyzed using multivariate logistic regression method. Results: A total of 1003 children and adolescents participated in the study; of them, 489 (48.8%) and 514(51.2%) were males and females, respectively. The Mean±SD age of study participants was 11.96±3.99 years. Moreover, 86.8% of the study subjects were from urban areas and 13.2% from rural areas. The highest prevalence of psychiatric disorders concerned behavioral disorders (6.8%); anxiety disorders (6.7%); The lowest prevalence were related to post-traumatic stress disorder (0.2%) and autism (0.1%). The overall prevalence of psychiatric disorder among children and adolescence was 14.4%. Conclusion: This study found a high prevalence of psychiatric disorders similar to previous studies in the same age groups. The estimates played an important role in designing useful programs and interventions.