One in 10 children diagnosed with mental illness

September 5, 2005
by staff reporter

One in 10 British children have been diagnosed with a mental illness, according to government statistics.

A survey of 7,977 children from the Office for National Statistics found four per cent of children had being diagnosed with an emotional disorder (anxiety or depression), six per cent with a conduct disorder, two per cent with a hyperkinetic disorder, and one per cent with a less common disorder (including autism, tics, eating disorders and selective mutism).

Two per cent of children had been diagnosed with more than one type of disorder.

Boys were more likely than girls to have been diagnosed with a mental disorder. Among 5-10 year olds, 10 per cent of boys and five per cent of girls were diagnosed with a mental disorder.

Among 11-16 year olds, the proportions were 13 per cent for boys and 10 per cent for girls.

Diagnosed mental disorders was greater among children in lone parent families (16 per cent) than among those in two parent families (8 per cent), and in families with neither parent working (20 per cent) compared with those in which both parents worked (8 per cent).

Seventeen per cent of children whose parent had no educational qualifications had been diagnosed with a mental disorder compared with four per cent of children where the parent had a degree level qualification.

One per cent of children aged 5-16 had been diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder. The majority of these children were boys (82 per cent).

Unlike children diagnosed with the more common disorders, autistic children tended to have more highly qualified parents than other children: 46 per cent had parents with qualifications above GCSE compared with 35 per cent of other children.

Similarly, autistic children were less likely to live in low income families: only nine per cent lived in households with a gross weekly income of less than £200 per week compared with 20 per cent of other children.

Read for yourself:
Office For National Statistics' Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain, 2004 (pdf)

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