Consultation psychiatry in an Italian child guidance center: a report on 200 referrals.

A consecutive unselected series of 200 children referred for psychiatric consultation to an Italian Child Guidance Center is included in this study. All diagnoses were made in accord with the third edition of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM III). Functional enuresis was the most common psychiatric disturbance (15 percent), followed by developmental reading disorder (14.5 percent) and mild mental retardation (12.5 percent). There was no case of attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (hyperkinetic syndrome). All depressions were consequences of another disorder and remitted when the child received attention and care. In 20.5 percent of cases no psychiatric diagnosis was made and the child apparently had been referred because of emotional problems in the parent.