Journal of Preventive Medicine

Introduction: Psychiatric disorders are prevalent and debilitating to all individuals, including children and adolescents. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of psychiatric disorders and their socio-demographic factors among high school students in the Bashagard district, Iran, in 2014.

Methods: A descriptive-analytical design (cross-sectional study) was conducted to investigate 313 high school students who were selected through a multi-stage cluster, stratified and simple sampling method. Data collection was performed suing the SCL-90 and the data were analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics such as frequency, percentage, chi-square and t-test.

 Results: A total of 313 students with mean age of 16.33±1.26 years were assessed. The finding showed that the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the total sample was 51.11, and in girl 85.24, and in boy 17.1%, respectively. The most common disorder, paranoid disorder and the lowest incidence was phobic anxiety among high school students. Most psychological disorders was significantly related to gender except in the phobic disorders and psychosis. Educational level of students had significant relationships with interpersonal sensitivity, depression and paranoid disorders. Geographical status of students had significant relationships with prevalence of obsessive-compulsive disorder, aggression, and psychosis. None of the psychiatric disorders was not significant with factors such as father’s occupation, mother's occupation, father's education, mother's education, family size and family economic status. (0.05

Conclusion: Findings of this study showed that the prevalence of psychological disorders in the Bashagard compared to other research conducted within and outside the country are moderate. However, the need for policies to reduce the burden of mental health in adolescence stage in the future, and providing ways out of this problem remains