Adjustment disorder: Prevalence, sociodemographic risk factors, and its subtypes in outpatient psychiatric clinic.

BACKGROUND AND

OBJECTIVE

This study aims at assessing the prevalence and risk factors of Adjustment disorder (AD), the AD subtypes, and the common causing stressors.

PATIENTS AND

METHODS

A cross sectional study was conducted at outpatient psychiatric clinic in Duhok City from July 2008 to July 2009. 637 patients equal and above 18 of both genders were selected randomly. SCID-I/P (Version 2.0) was adopted to diagnose patients with AD. SPSS (version 21), was used for data analysis.

RESULTS

The study showed that the prevalence of AD was 11.5%. It was more common among youngest age group (15-25 years) with a rate 69.9% (p=0.001) while lowest educational level (illiterate and primary) 53.5% (p=0.040), single 54.8% (p<0.001), students 39.7 (p<0.001) and from urban areas 71.2% (p=0.012) with statistically significant association. Although AD was more common among females (61.6%), no significant association was found between AD and gender (p=0.380). The most common subtype of AD was AD with mixed anxiety and depressed mood (34.2%) and was the commonest among females (19.2%) followed by AD with Anxiety subtype 30.1% which was the commonest among males (13.7%). The commonest psychosocial stressor was the illnesses (28.8%) followed by love affairs (26%) and domestic problems (16.4%).

CONCLUSIONS

The prevalence of AD was found to be high. The risk factors included young, low educational level, single, students, and those from urban areas. The most common subtype was AD with mixed anxiety and depressed mood and the commonest psychosocial stressor was the illnesses followed by love affairs and domestic problems.