Child psychiatric diagnoses in a population of Dutch schoolchildren aged 6 to 8 years

Abstract

Objective: To determine the prevalence rates of child psychiatric diagnoses in a school-based population of children aged 6 to 8 years in the south of the province of Limburg (The Netherlands).

Method: In a two-stage design 1,317 children were screened with the Child Behavior Checklist. From 403 of these children, child psychiatric information was obtained with the Amsterdam Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents (ADIKA, DSM-III-R/IV). Data were generalized to the responder group (n = 1,317) and to the entire cohort (N = 2,290). For the latter procedure, a prediction model was used to generalize ADIKA results to the nonresponders (n = 973).

Results: Estimates of the prevalence of different ADIKA diagnoses in the responder group were quite comparable with those for the entire cohort. Twenty-four percent of the entire cohort met criteria for a single disorder, and 21.0% met criteria for two or more disorders. However, in only 5.7% of the cases parents did report a need for help.

Conclusions: Where other studies generalize psychiatric diagnoses to the responder group only, this report adds new information by generalizing the prevalence to a school-based cohort of children aged 6 to 8 years. These prevalence estimates are of importance with regard to the demand for care for child psychopathology.