Psychosocial differences in children living in orphanages of Kashmir with and without psychiatric morbidity

Background/Objectives: Orphanages are emerging as an important source of care and child-raising for the ever-increasing number of orphans in the conflict-ridden Kashmir. These children are generally prone to develop psychiatric disorders even reared in well run institution. Objective is to highlight the psychosocial differences in children living in orphanages of Kashmir with and without psychiatric morbidity. Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out where 348 children were recruited from eight registered orphanages of Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir. Semistructured questionnaire was used to collect data related to sociodemographic profile of the children. Development and Well-Being Assessment (DAWBA) was used for one stage structured assessment of psychopathology. Data analysis was done by Statistical Package for Social Sciences for windows 20.0 version. Results: A total of 97.87% among those having psychiatric morbidity were males as against those without psychiatric morbidity where 28.99% were females. While 8.51% among those having psychiatric morbidity were double orphans, it formed only 1.45% of those without psychiatric morbidity. Likewise 25% among those having psychiatric morbidity had parental deaths due to fire-arm injury, while only 11.67% of them fall in the group without psychiatric morbidity. Among the group with psychiatric morbidity 31.91% had spent less than a year in an orphanage and 10.64% had spent ≥ 9 years as against those without morbidity where percentages were 14.49% and 4.35%, respectively. While 21.28% among those with psychiatric morbidity were enrolled in high education, it formed only 13.04% of those without psychiatric morbidity. Gender, type of orphan, length of stay, cause of parental death, and grade (education level) were significantly associated with the psychiatric morbidity (40.52%). Conclusion: The psychosocial differences in children with and without psychiatric morbidity may help in understanding the factors associated with the emerging psychopathology. Early timely intervention to the children especially “at risk” can be provided to alleviate their mental health problems