Schizophrenia Or Birthmark - Opinions

In Russia, about 70% of schoolchildren have mental disorders and developmental anomalies, said the chief psychiatrist of the Russian Ministry of Health, director of the Serbian Federal Medical Research Center for Psychiatry and Narcology Zurab Kekelidze.

According to TASS agency

It is difficult to say anything definite about 70% of mental disorders and developmental anomalies among schoolchildren. I do not know what the dear Zurab Ilyich means by "developmental anomalies." Birthmarks are also a developmental anomaly. But if we adhere to the framework of clinical psychiatry, then most often we have to talk about behavioral and neurotic disorders, which, say, in the science city of Fryazino, Moscow Region, account for 75% of diseases. Another 20% are patients with mental retardation and autism. The rest are schizophrenia, epilepsy, and various organic brain lesions. In total, the patients observed by a child psychiatrist make up 3.5% of all children and adolescents, which is very far from 70%.

However, there is an insidious "but" in every statistical study. It consists in the following. Three years ago, the state finally allocated money for a planned general medical examination of the population, including, of course, children and adolescents. According to the child psychiatrist's assumption, 8-10% of adolescents are likely to find some kind of mental disorder upon further examination. Of course, not the most difficult ones that a psychiatrist identifies immediately upon a superficial examination. Why superficial and why not further examination? If 35–40 children (one school class) are brought into the doctor's office and he must "examine" them in addition to those patients who are registered with him that day, then what kind of examination can we talk about, except the most formal?

Perhaps, by "mental disorders" is meant "pedagogical neglect" and different variants of "school maladjustment". These are quite common disorders that are compensated either by the efforts of school psychologists, or disappear with age. In most of these cases, child psychiatric therapy is not required. When treatment is needed, parents often categorically object: “To be registered with a psychiatrist? To ruin a child's life?"

Thus, mental disorders of varying severity in children and adolescents are unlikely to exceed 12-15%.