HABIT DISORDERS

Abstract

Introduction: Childhood habit behaviors appear in numerous different forms.Many people engage in some degree of habit like behavior in their lifetime. For example,habits can range from seemingly benign behaviors, such as nail biting or foot tapping, to morenoticeable physically damaging behaviors, such as teeth grinding (bruxism) and hair pulling.Habit disorders, now subsumed under the diagnostic term stereotypic movement disorder,consist of repetitive, seemingly driven, and nonfunctional motor behaviors that interfere withnormal activities or that result in bodily injury. Objectives: To determine the frequency ofdifferent habit disorders in children coming to outpatient department of Pediatrics unit of AlliedHospital Faisalabad. Study design: Cross sectional study. Setting: Pediatric department ofAllied Hospital Faisalabad. Duration of study: 1 year 06 months. (From 01-03-2015 to 01-09-2016). Results: We determined that majority of the patients i.e. 40.68%(n=72) were between49-72 months, mean and sd was 54.23+21.45 months of age, 54.80%(n=97) male and45.20%(n=80) females, frequency of different habit disorders in children coming to outpatientdepartment of pediatrics unit of Allied Hospital, Faisalabad revealed 19.31%(n=34), nail biting,22.03%(n=39) had thumb sucking, 41.81%(n=74) had bruxism, 11.86%(n=21) had hair pullingand 10.17%(n=18) subjects had other habits. Conclusion: We concluded that the frequency ofdifferent habit disorders i.e. nail biting, thumb sucking, bruxism, hair pulling and other is higheramong children coming to outpatient department of Pediatrics unit of Allied Hospital Faisalabadand comparable with other studies.