A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY ON COMMON BEHAVIORAL PROBLEMS AMONG THE UNDERPRIVILEGED ADOLESCENTS IN A SCHOOL OF KOLKATA.

Abstract

Adolescence is characterized by conicts of values, emotional stress and readiness to extreme attitudes, which invariably leads to several psychosocial problems of adolescents. During adolescence, the frequency and severity of violent interactions increase. Worldwide, the prevalence of clinically signicant psychiatric disorder in children is at least 7%. This rate rises in socially disadvantaged and densely populated urban areas. It also increases by 3%-4% after puberty. Substance abuse is a common trigger of behavioral problems and often requires specic therapy. Behavioral problems may be the rst sign of depression or other mental health disorders. With this background this study is conducted to nd out different behavioral and psychological problems of underprivileged adolescents studying in a school of Kolkata and their background information as well. This observational & descriptive epidemiological study was cross-sectional in design, was conducted from December 2019 to February, 2020. The School has at present 500 students from class Ι to X. In each class there are 50 students. The school has provisional afliation from ICSE Board. 20 students were selected from each class by Stratied Random Sampling method by using random number table from the list of the students of class VI to X. A predesigned, pretested, self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. The questionnaire was translated to two local languages i.e. Bengali & Hindi. Most common behavioral problems were lying (88%), phobia (86%). Anxiety (80%), followed by cruelty and destruction (44%), school failures (36%), depression (28%), stealing (20%), masturbation (10%), addiction (8%). Common problems among male students were Anxiety, Phobia, Lying, Cruelty, School failure. Among female students, Phobia, Depression, Anxiety & Lying were common behavioural problems. 62 adolescents told that they had phobia. Among them 62.9% adolescent had phobia to specic object. 32.26% had social phobia and 4.84% had school phobia. Further longitudinal studies should be planned to nd out temporal association of these behavioral and psychological problems among this study group.