Chapter 1 - Prevalence, risk factors, and disease burden of child and adolescent mental disorders: Taiwanese and global aspects

Abstract

Despite several national epidemiological studies of child and adolescent mental disorders in the world with varied prevalence estimates according to DSM-III, DSM-III-R, or DSM-IV, there is a lack of their prevalence estimates according to DSM-5 criteria. The discrepant prevalence rates may be explained by different populations, sampling methods, age groups, instruments (interviews vs questionnaires), and diagnostic criteria (different editions of DSM and ICD). In terms of major risk factors for mental disorders in the child and adolescent populations, including sex, age, urban–rural, and socioeconomic status, the magnitudes and directions of their associations with mental disorders also vary across countries and studies. The uncertainty of the disease burden of child and adolescent mental disorders is caused by heterogeneous prevalence estimates cross countries and between community-based and clinic-based settings. This chapter reviews the prevalence and major risk factors of child and adolescent mental disorders as well as the disease burden caused by varied prevalence rates of child and adolescent mental disorders based on the representative studies in the past decades and the recent National Epidemiological Study of Child Mental Disorders in Taiwan (Taiwan’s survey).