BRIEF COMMUNICATION Social Phobia among Secondary School Students in Baghdad/Iraq

Iraq represents a model of the challenging mental health needs of children in conflict-affected, low-income coun-tries. Long-term instability, violent conflict and wars under-mine health and mental health status of people in Iraq, par-ticularly children, who form half its population. Raising the level of knowledge and recognition of children’s psycho-logical health in this country has been difficult. The knowl-edge base has been limited by the shortage of resources, international sanctions and the isolation of Iraqi scholars (AlObaidi, Corcoran, & Scarth, 2013). This short report presents the data from research conducted in 2003 to estimate the prevalence rate of social phobia among secondary school students in Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq. A random sample of 1080 secondary school stu-dents was selected from six secondary schools in Baghdad. The sample consisted of 540 females and 540 males; th