DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2019.v07i03.037

Pages: 1048-1056

Emotional and behavioral problems in children have emerged as a public health problem in Developing countries. Only few studies are done on the issue. Published evidence emphasizes the benefits of early interventions to prevent behavioral and emotional problems and poor school performance. Understanding of the epidemiology of behavioral and emotional disorders in children is a prerequisite for developing management plan and prevention strategy. Standardized questionnaires for measuring psychopathological symptoms in children has been Developed. The Strength and Difficulties questionnaire is a useful instrument to aid clinicians in diagnosis and could be used as part of the initial assessment process. The aim of study was to screen 5-11 year old school children in Dhaka city for emotional and behavioral problems using Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). A cross-sectional study conducted during the period of January 2010 to December 2010 among 196 school going children of schools of Dhaka city aged between 5 -11 years. A total of 235 students along with their parents were selected and 196 have been interviewed. In the study multistage sampling was adopted. Replacement of the non-responder student is taken from the same school. The Bengali version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire was used for the interview of the parents of the selected children. Strength and difficulty score was generated based on standard scoring protocol. The individuals were categorized based on cut off used for individual domains as well as total difficulty score. Cross tabulation was done to assess association of disability level with socioeconomic variables. Through multivariate analysis the risk factor were assessed. The prevalence of such disorder was found to be quite higher among them, more than one in five (20.9%) children was found to have emotional and behavioral disorders as screened using the strength and difficulty questionnaire. In the children another 41.8%