PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL ALTERATIONS IN CHILDHOOD - THE CHILD IN ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL

The investigation which is presented in this reports attempts to obtain rates of prevalence in child psychopathology and to discover the association that socioenvironmental variables establish with regard to the alteration. The study has followed an epidemiological desing of the cross sectional of a communitary in the school population. The sample is made up of 411 children, aged between 8 and 15. The sources of information have been the parents, the teachers and the children. The prevalence of psychopathological alteration obtained through the level of mental health as informed by the parents was 11,4% The prevalence found in the clinical symptoms based on assesment from the parents, teachers and children respectively has been: symptoms of anxiety 8%, 21% and 26%; symptoms of depression 9%, 26% and 13%; and symptoms of behaviour alteration 7%, 21% and 16%. The sociodemographic variables are hardly related to the psychopathology in our study. However, the variables of the school environment - intellectual level, academic performance and socialization - are closely linked to alteration, maintaining in accord this sense the different sources of assesment.