Child Psychopathology: Epidemiologic Study Psicopatologia na Infância: Levantamento Epidemiológico

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Psychiatric disorders presented during childhood may persist during adolescence and adulthood, and have a negative impact that may affect the development and autonomy of the future adult. The present epidemiological study arose from the need to know the probability of psychopathology in childhood, in the population of the elementary schools of the county of Vila Franca de Xira. One of the goals is to allow, in a sustained way, to assess the real needs from the point of view of Mental Health of the young children of this county.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: Caregivers and teachers of 3063 children from elementary schools of the county participated in this stud through the filling of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). The statistical treatment of the data was performed through IBM® SPSS® (IBM - Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, version 21).
RESULTS: The response rate was 82.27% in the caregivers and 86.15% in the teachers. The probability of existence of psychopathology in the questionnaires filled out by caregivers and teachers was similar (14.2% and 13.68%). No significant differences were found between the probability of psychopathology between genders.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: The data report a probability of psychopathology that matches the world prevalence of 12.36%, at the ages covered by this study. This type of epidemiological survey is essential for the alert in health promotion policies that assure children’s mental health needs. It highlights the need for timely prevention and intervention in this area.