‎ psychiatric disorders in iranian children and adolescents

objective: the aim of the present study was to investigate the epidemiology of psychiatric disorders in ‎children and adolescents in five provinces of iran: tehran, shiraz, isfahan, tabriz and mashhad.‎ method: in the present study, we selected 9,636 children and adolescents aged 6-18 years through ‎multistage cluster random sampling method from tehran, shiraz, isfahan, tabriz and mashhad. ‎we instructed the clinical psychologists to complete the strengths and difficulties questionnaire ‎‎(sdq) for the participants, and those who received a high score on sdq, completed the persian ‎version of kiddie-sads-present and lifetime version (k-sads-pl). we used descriptive ‎analysis and 95% confidence interval to investigate the relationship between scores of the k-‎sads questionnaire and demographic factors‏. ‏we used one-way anova to test the significant ‎differences among the disorders according to sex, age and province of residence.‎‎ results: based on the results, oppositional defiant disorder (odd) (4.45%) had the highest prevalence of psychiatric ‎disorders in the five provinces and substance abuse and alcohol abuse (0%) had the lowest ‎prevalence. in addition, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (adhd) had the most ‎prevalence in boys (5.03%) and odd had the most prevalence in ‎girls (4.05%). among the three age groups, 6 to 9 year olds had the highest rates of adhd ‎‎(5.69%); 10 to 14 and 15 to 18 year olds had the highest rates of odd (4.32% and 4.37% ‎respectively). among the five provinces, tehran and mashhad allocated the highest rates of odd; isfahan and shiraz had the highest rates of adhd; and tabriz had the highest rates of social phobia.‎ conclusion : the current study revealed that the overall frequency of psychiatric disorders based on kiddie-‎sads-present and lifetime version (k-sads-pl) was higher than a similar study. moreover, in ‎this study, among the five provinces, tehran and mashhad allocated the highest rates of odd; isfahan and shiraz had the highest rates of adhd; and tabriz had the highest rates of social phobia. therefore, these percentage ‎of psychiatric disorders in iran lead us toward a greater use of consultation and mental health ‎services‏.