International Journal of Contemporary Pediatrics | May-June 2017 | Vol 4 | Issue 3 Page 1088 International Journal of Contemporary Pediatrics Landge AP et al. Int J Contemp Pediatr. 2017 May;4(3):1088-1092 http://www.ijpediatrics.com pISSN 2349-3283 | eISSN 2349-3291 Original Research Article Patterns of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders and associated factors in outpatients attending child psychiatry clinic: a hospital based study Anisha P. Landge*, Darpan Kaur, Rakesh P. Ghildiyal INTRODUCTION Recent studies indicate that about one out of every three to four adolescents is estimated to meet lifetime criteria for a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) mental disorder. 1 Furthermore, the risk of psychiatric disorder in children with physical illnesses is approximately double compared to the healthy children. 2 Current studies show that psychiatric problems may be seen in 20-35% of the attendees at the paediatric clinics. These may range from psychological issues like difficulty in adjustment to a life situation to a diagnosable psychiatric disorder. Although these children are regular attendees in primary care, they mainly present with somatic rather than mental health symptoms. 3 Stress and anxiety is the most common underlying problem in medically unexplained symptoms, however parents often fail to identify them and seek multiple consultations. 4 ABSTRACT Background: Childhood mental disorders are common and yet only a minority of children with mental health problems receive appropriate child mental health consultation. There is scarcity of literature on patterns of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders from developing countries like India. Methods: It was a cross sectional survey on outpatients attending the Child and Adolescent psychiatry clinic, Department of Psychiatry, MGM Medical College, Navi Mumbai. Study sample consisted of all new child & adolescent cases attending the clinic and willing to give consent. Data was analysed for sex, residence, informant, socio-economic status, birth history, family history, medical co-morbidity, reason and source of referral, presence of stressors, psychiatric diagnosis etc using SPSS 20. Institutional Ethics clearance was obtained. Results: Data analysis of n= 150 patients revealed mean age of 9.53 with SD of 3.84. Majority of the patients belonged to school going age group (59.3%), male sex (54.7%), living in urban areas (68.7%), belonging to middle class (56%) and accompanied by mother (54%). 28% had significant birth history while 18.7% had family history of psychiatric illness. 28.7% had co-morbid medical illness. The most common reason for referral was academic problems (24%) from the department of paediatrics (34%). The majority of the cases were diagnosed with ADHD (26%), mental retardation (13.3%), Learning disability (10.7%) followed by Autism (8.0%) & Depression (6.7%). Conclusions: We conclude that there are distinct patterns of child and adolescent psychiatric disorders in our study. Further collaborative research in the arena of child and adolescent mental health is recommended. Keywords: Child and adolescent psychiatric disorders, Referral patterns Department of Psychiatry, MGM Medical College, Kamothe, Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, India Received: 27 January 2017 Accepted: 27 February 2017 *Correspondence: Dr. Anisha P. Landge, E-mail: dradl.1289@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/10.18203/2349-3291.ijcp20171733