Prevalence of Behavioral and Emotional Disorders among the Orphans and Factors Associated with these Disorders

Abstract

Background: Orphans are the special group of children who are generally deprived and prone to develop psychiatric disorders even reared in well run institution. Objectives: To find out the prevalence of the behavioral and emotional disorder among the children living in orphanage in Dhaka city, and to assess the possible factors associated with the presence of disorders among this study population. Methods: It was a cross sectional descriptive study conducted in selected orphanages. A Total 342 cases were included. One stage structured assessment of psychopathology was carried out by using a valid Bangla version of DAWBA (The Development and Well-Being Assessment). Data analysis was done by SPSS for windows 16.0 version. Results: The results indicate that overall prevalence of behavioral and emotional disorders were 40.35%, in which Behavioral disorder was 26.9%, Emotional disorder was 10.2% and both Behavioral and Emotional disorder were 3.2%. Higher length of stay and low level of education of foster mother were significantly associated with psychiatric morbidity of the respondents. Conclusions: It can be concluded that behavioral and emotional disorders are highly prevalent among orphan children and adolescents with residential care that needs to be addressed. Moreover, measure for early identification and intervention will improve the quality of life of the orphan population.