International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | December 2016 | Vol 3 | Issue 12 Page 3493 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Lamba R et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2016 Dec;3(12):3493-3497 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article A study of pattern of psychogenic morbidity and associated biosocial factors in school going adolescent girls Ratandeep Lamba 1 *, Sanjeev Kumar 1 , Ravi Rana 2 INTRODUCTION World Health Organization defines adolescents as young people aged 10-19 years. Presently, there are 1.2 billion adolescents, a fifth of world population; with four out of five living in developing countries. 21% of India’s population belongs to age group of 10-19 years. 1 Out of 210 million adolescents, 100 million are females (Manpower Profile, 1996). 2 India has the fastest growing segment of urban poor in the world. India’s urban population increased by 31. 2% between 1991 and 2001-nearly double the increase of 17.9% in rural population over the same period. 3 Young adults are the most fertile section of the population so that urban growth has now become self-perpetuating. In future the growth of the population of young people in the developing countries will primarily be in urban areas. 4 ABSTRACT Background: Psychiatric & psychogenic problems in children in India are rising and reported-cases represent only the tip of the iceberg, large number remains unreported. During adolescence, children need special care as they undergo a complex process of emotional, physical and social changes. At times, failure to adjust with these changes leads to mental health problems. Both, girls and boys are susceptible to suffer from these problems but, for adolescent girls, the problem gets compounded due to multitude social factors. Adolescents are the future citizens of a country and it is imperative to systematically address their needs. The present study was planned to study psychosocial problems in school going adolescent girls & biosocial factors related to it. Methods: The study population comprised of the adolescent girls attending Queen Victoria, Girls Inter College located in the heart of Agra city. 880 school girls of age group 10-19 years whose parents or guardians gave written voluntary consent participated in the study, comprised the study population. To identify psychogenic morbidity Youth Self-report & M. I. N. I. International neuropsychiatric interview were used. Socio-demographic details of the girls were collected on a socio-demographic data sheet prepared for this study & conclusions were drawn. Results: Psychogenic morbidities were found in 13.5% (119/880) of the school going adolescent girls (10-19 years). Highest psychiatric illnesses were in those who were 17 (20.4%) followed by 16 (15.2%) & 15 (14%) years of age respectively. Conclusions: According to ICD 10 criteria, 34 (28.6%) of the girls belonged to neurotic stress related & somatoform disorders wherein anxiety disorders (generalised anxiety disorder, phobias & OCD) were the most common. 29 (24.3%) of the girls had mood & affective disorders. Keywords: Adolescent girls, Biosocial factors, Psychogenic morbidity 1 Department of Community Medicine, 2 Department of Psychiatry, LLRM Medical College, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India Received: 07 October 2016 Revised: 07 October 2016 Accepted: 05 November 2016 *Correspondence: Dr. Ratandeep Lamba, E-mail: drrdlamba@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20164280