title: Mental health status of runaway adolescents.
abstract: There are 47.22 million homeless and runaway adolescents roaming on the streets of our country (Voluntary Health Association of India - VHAI) of which one lakh are in Delhi.1 Very little is known about them, their needs or their experiences.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  (1). To assess the psychological problems amongst the runaway adolescent boys. (2). To determine possible risk factors.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study was cross-sectional in design and done at a child observation home for boys in Delhi. All runaway boys aged 10 to 16 years of age were included in the study. The study was conducted from 15th June to 15th July 2001. A comprehensive schedule consisting of five parts, viz identification data, hopelessness scale for children by Kazdin, Beck depression inventory, Psychological survey questionnaire and RUTTER-B2 scale were used to assess various mental health problems.
  
  
  RESULTS
  20.7% of children were found to have high hopelessness and 8% of children had depression. 2% of children revealed that they had attempted suicide at any point of time in life. Among children with high hopelessness, 3.2% had ever attempted suicide. 8.3% of the depressed children gave history of suicidal attempts. 38% of children gave history of physical abuse, 14.6% of sexual abuse and a large number reported substance abuse. 69.33% were found to have behavioral problems (i.e. scored above the recommended cut off score of 9). 81% of children had antisocial behavior, 7.8% were neurotic and 10.5% remained undifferentiated.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Runaway adolescents suffer from a wide array of mental health problems and there is a need for a broad based psychosocial intervention programme.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, G B Pant Hospital, New Delhi, India. sarbjeetkh@sify.com
authors.forename: Sarbjeet
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Khurana
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sharma
authors.forename: Shivananda
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jena
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Saha
authors.forename: G K
authors.initials: GK
authors.lastname: Ingle
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005195:Family Relations; D005260:Female; D006703:Ill-Housed Persons; D018453:Homeless Youth / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012419:Runaway Behavior; D013406:Suicide, Attempted / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D014505:Urban Population