Abstract
To clarify the demographics and clinical diagnoses of patients treated in our Japanese child and adolescent clinic, we studied data from outpatients who visited the clinic between 1991 and 2005. Subjects included 1339 patients (508 boys, 831 girls) ranging from 3 to 18 years of age. Analysis revealed an annual increase in new patients; most were over 13 years old (79.0%). The highest percentage were diagnosed with neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders (F4) (49.2%), followed by behavioral and emotional disorders of childhood (F9) (13.1%), schizophrenia and delusional disorders (F2) (11.4%) and behavioral syndromes associated with physical factors (F5) (9.0%). All diagnoses were based on ICD-10 classifications. In recent years, there has been an increase in the prevalence of developmental and hyperkinetic disorders. Of the 1339 patients, 429 (32.0%) showed non-attendance at school which was the most commonly observed chief complaint among child and adolescent patients. These results indicate that treatment of adolescents with neurotic disorders and developmental disorders comprises a significant proportion of our clinical practice. Therefore appropriate training for specialists in child and adolescent psychiatry is urgently needed.
