Prevalence of mental retardation in urban and rural populations of the goiter zone in Northwest India (original) (raw)

Indian journal of public health

Abstract

The existence of an endemic goiter belt along the southern slopes of the Himalayas has been known for a long time. Prevalence of neonatal hypothyroidism is high and there has been little work on the prevalence of mental retardation in this part of India. The study was conducted with the aim to know the prevalence of mental retardation in the urban and rural populations of Himachal Pradesh, India and to generate a hypothesis on the differential distribution (geographical) of mental retardation. This cross-sectional study was conducted in the rural and urban areas of the district of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India among children of 1-10 years of age. In the first phase, the children in the age group of 1-10 years were screened for mental retardation using the Ten Questions Screen, whereas in the second phase the suspects were evaluated clinically. The prevalence of mental retardation was found to be 1.71% in the study population with higher prevalence (3.3%) in the 73-120 months age g...

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