Psychiatric disorder in the young adolescents of an industrial town

An epidemiological study into the prevalence of psychiatric disorder among 13-14-year-old children is described. Psychiatric disorder was considered to be present if the child had symptoms or a disturbance of behaviour equal in severity to those normally referred to a Child Psychiatrist, at any time in the previous twelve months. The population of 1,198 children was screened by means of a parental questionnaire, and the author was given a weighted sample of 150 children for psychiatric examination. In addition to a diagnosis, recommendations for treatment were made for each child on the assumption of unlimited facilities. The assessments were then compared with the parental questionnaire scores, hitherto unknown, and the prevalence rates were calculated. Because only 67-4 per cent of the parental questionnaires were returned, a subsidiary study on a 1:5 sample of `non-returners' was carried out, and this indicated that, particularly among the boys, the prevalence rate was much higher than that of the original sample. After adjustment for the non-returners the rates of severe disorder were 6.2 per cent boys, 2.6 per cent girls and for moderate disorder 14.6 per cent boys and 11 per cent girls. Validation of the psychiatric diagnosis was provided by comparing it with both parents' and teachers' questionnaire scores, and with the total symptom scores of clinic children in a pilot study. The study is compared with that among 10-11-year-olds in the Isle of Wight, and the higher rate is thought to be a feature of the area rather than the age of the children and not due to different criteria for diagnosis.