A study on mental disorders among children attending general health care facilities in guinea-bissau

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Periodical article

Title:	A study on mental disorders among children attending general health care facilities in guinea-bissau
Author:	Jong, J.T.V.M. de
Year:	1986
Periodical:	Psychopathologie africaine
Volume:	21
Issue:	1
Pages:	67-89
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Guinea-Bissau
Subjects:	child health psychiatry
Abstract:	Description of an investigation into childhood mental disorders in two southern regions of Guinea-Bissau, Quinara and Tombali, and in Belem, an urban neighbourhood of Bissau. The study was aimed at establishing the type and frequency of mental disorders confronting basic health workers in their ordinary work, and at assessing their skill in diagnosing these disorders. Of the children screened, 13 percent had mental problems. Disorders detected were mainly enuresis, mental subnormality and conduct disorder. Only one child with a mental health problem was recognized as such by a health worker. This reinforced the already existing opinion that the training programme for basic health workers should focus primarily on diagnostic sensitivity, with 'speech disturbance', 'wetting/soiling', 'fits/falling', and 'backwardness' forming the most important cues to mental disorders, while 'headache' can serve as a useful trigger for the selection of psychosocial problems. The low (4 percent) frequency of mentally retarded children may be explained by various sociocultural factors. App., bibliogr., notes, sum. in English and French.