Prevalencia de trastornos psicológicos en niños y adolescentes, su relación con la edad y el género

Abstract

Prevalence of psychological disorders in children and adolescents and its relation with age and gen der. We present the second part of our research about the characteristics of the children and adolescents whose parents asked for psychological treatment in a Community Health Center. We describe the diagnostic prevalence rates and its relation with the age and gender of the subjects. 404 subjects (265 males and 139 females), aged 0 to 18 years, constitute de sample. The behavioral disorders were the most prevalent (23.0 %), followed by depressive (14.6 %), anxiety (13.3 %), developmental (12.7 %) and elimination (9.7 %) disorders. A significant pattern of relationship between age and diagnostic categories was found (χ 2 = 76.33, g.l. = 30, p = 0.0001), sug gesting that psychopathology follows an evolutive pattern. We also found a significant pattern of relationship between the type of disorder and gender (χ2 = 33.92, g.l. = 10, p = 0.0001).