Referral Profile of a Child Development Clinic in Northern India

To delineate the demographic and clinical profile of children referred to a Child Development Clinic (CDC) of a tertiary care public hospital in India. A retrospective review of medical records of all the cases referred to CDC in the year 2009 was conducted. Out of the 792 children referred to CDC, complete medical records were available in 641 cases, which comprised the study population. 66% were males and mean age at referral was 54.06 +/- 44.4 months. 68.64% children had global developmental delay or mental retardation, majority (51.1%) of them having severe or profound retardation. 168 (26.2%) patients had various forms of cerebral palsy, with 39.3% being quadriplegics and 121 (18.9%) patients had pervasive developmental disorders. Only, 1.2% of cases had isolated motor delay and 2.9% had developmental language disorder. This study shows that in developing countries the proportion of children referred to CDC with severe disabling conditions is high and a significant proportion of these children have pervasive developmental disorders. This study provides baseline data for further planning of services for these children in the authors' region.