Prevalence of some psychiatric symptoms in adolescent students in Assiut

This study was conducted on 970 students from preparatory and secondary schools in Assiut City and two nearby rural areas using a stratified random sampling procedure. Middlesex demographic date, solcio economic status, family environment and personal habits and hobbies were used. Preparatory school students had consistently higher prevalence rates for phobia, obsession, psychosomatic, depression and hysteria than secondary school students. Girls had higher prevalence rates for anxiety, phobia and depression, while boys had higher prevalence rates for obsession, psychomatic and hysteria. The prevalence and severity of the different psychiatric symptoms was found to be variably affected by a set of socioeconomic and familial factors including: divorce, death of one of parents, family disputes, father working abroad, socioeconomic standards, sleeping habits, order of birth, and practicing hobbies. Generally, there was negative correlations between MHQ scores and scholastic achievement scores

Determining simple parameters for social classifications for health research

Studies of community health problems need correlations with social standards. Estimation of social standards of families in a community needs to identify certain parameters with high validity. The present paper presented three models of social scoring for different health problems. The models were previously used with satisfactorily acceptable social leveling and correlations with the health problems

Knowledge and opinions of families about mental illness and mental patients

Sixty families of first admitted psychiatric patients were interviewed to explore their knowledge about mental illness and their opinions about mental patients in general and their hospitalized ill member in particular. The results showed a tendency of family members to reflect the general community view of mental patients, describing them as unreasonable, odd and bizarre. They also tend to deny psychotic illness among their patients. Their knowledge about mental illness is very limited and greatly influenced by the stigma attached to mental illness