Referred morbidity and help seeking on mental disorders in childhood and adolescence

Introduction Determining the prevalence of mental disturbances in childhood and adolesce nce gives us a better knowledge of their distribution in a given age group and provide us data for planning, implementing and evaluating health care p rograms. This survey was centered on complaints of "nervous problems" in a population group ranging from 1 to 19 years old as a tool to measure mental illness prevalence in that age group. Methods A group of 141 children and teenagers with complaints of nervous problems p articipated in the study, drawn by applying questionnaires from June, 1989 to July, 1990 to a sample of 3, 158 people in the age group 1-19 years old, living in the Southeast area of Grande Sao Paulo. It was conducted an anal ysis of the nature of the complaints, their referred reasons and behavior, age, and gender. Results The prevalence of complaints of nervous problems was 4.7%. The older they w ere the more they complained It was noticed a male predominance in the youn ger group and female preponderance in the group 14 years old or older One i n five tried to get any help, and severity of their complaint was the most important predictor for that. Conclusion The prevalence was due to the population's ability to identify mental illne sses and it also reflects the family understandings of these problems. As o nly a few sought for health care, possible causes were identified and inter vention actions were proposed to satisfy the unattended needs.