Social & behavioural problems among school going adolescents of Garhwal region of Uttarakhand

Abstract

Background: Mental health disorder is a major cause of impairment in youth aged between 9 to 17 years as one in every fifth youth has a mental disorder. In India, the prevalence of mental problems among adolescents is 14.3%. Objective: To find out the proportion of social and behavioural problems among adolescents and their association with the sociodemographic factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among 150 school going adolescents (11-17years). All the study participants were recruited through non-probability sampling technique. Data was collected through Google Forms. For assessing the social and behavioural problems, Strength and Difficulty questionnaire (SDQ) was used. Result: There were 76 (50.7%) males and 74 (49.3%) females in this study. 16% of school going children were categorized as “abnormal”, 12% as borderline and 72.% as normal for social and behavioural problems based on scores of SDQ. The findings have implications that gender do play a role in affecting mental health status.Conclusions: Mental health problems are one of the most common and highly prevalent disorders among adolescents in India. For addressing psycho-social problems among adolescents there is a dire need of counsellors. Training of parents as well as teachers should be conducted for timely intervention.