Publication:

Prevalence of psychiatric co-morbidity among abused and neglected: a cross-sectional study among child, adolescents, and adult population

Background In the past few decades child abuse and neglects has been only highlighted as an area of concern and has only explained lifelong mental and physical consequences rather than estimating the prevalence rates also there were gaps in child age groups in most of the previous studies in the world, especially in India. Therefore, the present study was undertaken to estimate the prevalence of psychiatric co-morbidity among those who having history of abuse and neglects in a community population of all age groups and to compare the prevalence of psychiatric co-morbidity in among different age groups.

Methods A total of 600 participants, children, adolescents and caregivers like parents, of aged 1-65 years, from Shimoga districts, were screened by using CCMS for adults and parents to identify the cases. A chi-square test has used for statistics.

Results The overall prevalence rate of psychiatric co-morbidity among abuse and neglects were 29.9% (28.9% had schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders 27.9%, mood disorders 25.6%, anxiety disorders 29.2%, behavior disorders 43.5%, and substance use disorders 29.2%).

Conclusions Childhood maltreatment has strong associations with all classes of disorders at all life-course stages in all groups. The awareness of the serious long-term consequences of child maltreatment should encourage better identification of those at risk and the development of effective interventions to protect children from violence.