A survey of a total population of children of specified age in a specified geographical area of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to determine prevalence rates of child psychiatric disorders

Sullivan, Elizabeth Michelle (1975) A survey of a total population of children of specified age in a specified geographical area of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, to determine prevalence rates of child psychiatric disorders. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

A total population of children of specified age in a designated geographical area in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador were surveyed to determine prevalence rates of child psychiatric disorders. The study population consisted of all children age nine or ten years who were in attendance at any of six schools in the Goulds-Kilbride, Petty Harbour areas (416). -- The following methods were used: -- 1) Parents were approached by mail for permission to screen the specified children for the presence of disorder. Positive response was obtained from the parents of 277 (66.58%). -- 2) The 277 children were then screened as follows: -- a) Questionnaire completed by Parents -- b) Questionnaire completed by Teachers -- c) Records search of relevant agencies to determine previous contacts -- These steps identified 53 (19.1%) of the 277 children to be at risk of having a psychiatric disorder. -- 3) A random sample of the ‘at risk’ group together with an equal number of normal children, randomly selected and matched for sex and denomination of school attended, were then subjected to more extensive study as follows: -- a) Interview with Parents -- b) Interview with Child -- c) Psychological Testing -- From the accumulated information on the individually assessed group, final global psychiatric diagnoses were established. From these results prevalence rates of psychiatric disorder were calculated for the positive response population. A corrected prevalence rate of 21.12% was obtained for definite psychiatric disorder of any degree. Emotional disorders were prevalent at a rate of 11.9% and mixed, conduct-emotional disorders were prevalent at a rate of 7.09%, contrary to expectation pure conduct disorder was absent in the current study. Emotional disorder was found to be more prevalent among children of mothers with certain neurotic symptoms, while mixed disorder was more common among children of fathers with neurotic symptoms. -- A generally high frequency of individual items of deviant behavior was noted. Neurotic items of behavior were very common particularly among the children of large families. Boys were observed to show more conduct problems and girls more emotional problems. A tendancy was noted for children from lower classes to have lower tested I.Q. scores and for children of higher social classes to have higher tested I.Q. scores. -- The method used in the current study was found to be applicable to local conditions and with further testing might well be a productive method for use in a provincial total population survey of the prevalence of child psychiatric disorder.

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