Prevalence of Psychiatric Morbidity in Visually Impaired Children.

ABSTRACT

This study was done to measure psychiatric morbidity and associated sociodemographic variables among visually impaired children. 92 students of age range 6-20 years from four schools for the blind, in Ranchi, were screened with verbal Hindi translation of General Health Questionnaire-60. Diagnostic Interview Schedule – Parent version was applied to establish psychiatric diagnosis on primary caretakers of those who scored above cutoff. Fourteen scored above cutoff and psychiatric diagnoses of 8 children were established. The prevalence of psychiatric morbidity among visually impaired children was found to be 8.69%. No socio-demographic variable was associated with the occurrence of psychiatric illness.