Psychiatric disorders among new child and adolescent attendees in an outpatient setting of a Sungai Petani Hospital: a registry from January 2014 to December 2014

Introduction: Children and adolescents requiring mental health services are increasing. This paper is a registry of new clients in the Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) outpatient clinic of Hospital Sultan Abdul Halim (HSAH), Sungai Petani, Kedah, Malaysia from January 2014 to December 2014. Objectives: We aimed to determine the trends of different types of mental disorders in first contact clients at an outpatient CAMH clinic in HSAH. Thereafter, we sought to compare the differences in demographics with types of illness and treatments modalities. Method: We reviewed electronic case records retrospectively for the study period from January 2014 to December 2014 and universal sampling was done. Results: During the study period, there were 160 new cases. The highest number of patients were from the primary school age group with a mean age of 9.98 years. The highest incidence was Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (23.8%), followed by Autism Spectrum Disorder (17.5%) and others at 15.6%. Out of those sampled, 61% were treated pharmacologically and 39% were receiving non-pharmacological treatment. Conclusions: There is a need to enhance and expand services to enable the client and family to obtain the necessary intervention. With improved screening and empowerment of the family, better outcomes could be achieved for the client