Screening for emotional and psychosocial disorders in children and adolescents with excess weight

OBJECTIVES: To realize screening for emotional and psychosocial disorders in overweight and obese children and adolescents by application of pediatric symptoms checklist. METHODS: Cross-sectional epidemiological study of children and adolescents aged six and 16 years; evaluated at the general pediatrics outpatient clinic of the Hospital Universitário do Oeste do Paraná, in Cascavel City, State of Paraná. The variables analyzed were: sex, age, BMI, and their relationship to the pediatric symptoms checklist (PSC). For the analysis of the data the chi-square hypothesis tests and Fishers exact hypotheses were used for the proportions. The measure of effect of interest was the 95% confidence interval ratio, obtained with the Poisson regression, considering significant results with value of p<0.05 Wald test. RESULTS: 157 subjects aged six to 16 years participated, 123(78%) of which were under 12 years of age. Of these, 66 (42%) were female and 91 (58%) male, 88 (56%) were obese and 69 (44%) were overweight. The pediatric symptoms checklist was positive in 39 (24%) of the participants. Most participants with positive PSC were less than 12 years old and obese. There was no statistical significance between age, sex and BMI and positive score on the pediatric symptoms checklist. CONCLUSION: 24% of overweight and obese children were at risk for emotional and psychosocial problems.