A study of behavioural problems in school going children in Wardha

Background

Children between the ages of 5 and 16 who are enrolled in school make approximately 30% of India’s total population. This is a time of tremendous physical development and growth, as well as rapid mental, emotional, and social transformation for them.¹ They could have mental diseases, particularly behavioural issues. Parents and educators are very concerned about behaviour issues in school-aged children because it is well established that these issues will have negative effects both now and in the future.² The children behaviour problems may engage in violent or inappropriate behaviour. Such behavioural problems frequently result in criminal activity or drug dependence, which brings great financial stress and suffering in the community.^3,4 These behavioural problems are thought to be influenced by a variety of factors, including family conflict, poverty, low academic achievement, and parental unemployment, rather than psychological and physiological health issues.^3,5 Being a location where people are engaged, schools cannot be organised without taking the communities’ and parents’ active engagement into consideration. Parental involvement is crucial in the academic world since children with involved parents appear to have less behavioural issues and do academically considerably better than children with disinterested parents.⁶

There are many types of behavioural problems seen in the school going children. Firstly, Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) – Oppositional defiant disorder causes children to create trouble repeatedly at the house, in the classroom, or among other siblings. Before the age of eight, the majority of children with ODD begin developing behavioural disorder signs. ODD typically signs as loose temper, arguing frequently with the elderly, denying complying with instructions, accusing others of their fault, feel offended. Secondly, Conduct Disorder (CD)- The term “conduct disorder” refers to a range of emotional and persistent actions that children and teenagers display. The rights of others, empathy, and adherence to social norms are often difficult for young people with CD. Kids with CDs could be categorised as “bad” or delinquent. They might also behave aggressively toward people or animals in the ways listed below: Fighting physically, abusing others, robbing them, intentionally injuring others, using weapons like sticks or bats against them, displaying no regret for their crimes, and damaging property be.⁷ Thirdly, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – The children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder acts impulsively or is more energetic than normal. Children with ADHD frequently experience difficulties focusing, which can cause problems in the classroom. When they are adults, many young persons with ADHD exhibit the same symptoms. The children with symptoms like, constantly daydreaming, talking constantly, struggling to get along with people, squirming when seated, displaying signs of forgetfulness or frequently losing things, taking unnecessary risks, frequently making mistakes due to forgetfulness, struggling to delay gratification may have ADHD.⁸

Around twenty percent of children and adolescent experience difficulties because of different psychological diseases around the world.² It is challenging to obtain exact number of child Psychological illnesses, but epidemiological data that are available shows that twelve to fifty one percent with approximately twenty-nine percent, of children around the world experience emotional and other psychological illnesses that require psychological health counselling.^9,10 Children all together in this category that is around six to nine percent are required intensive psychological care because of severe emotional disturbances.^9,11 Academic parental participation, which is defined as any parent-led action that might reasonably be anticipated to enhance a child’s performance or behaviour, is widely acknowledged.¹² Parent participation includes interactions between parents and children, parents and teachers, and to some extent, parents and other parents.¹³ It describes actions that help children fulfil or exceed the expectations or standards of their role as a student.⁶

Rationale

School-going children are vulnerable to several health problems due to their active lifestyle and exposure to various environmental factors. One of the most common problems faced by school-going children is behaviour-related issues. The behaviour-related problems can affect a child’s academic performance, social interaction, and emotional well-being.

Aim & objectives

The aim of the study is to assess the prevalence of behavioural problems in school going children in the age of 15-18 years at Wardha.

Study design

The study will be a community based cross sectional study among the school-going children in Wardha districts of Maharashtra.

Study setting

A study will be conducted to assess the prevalence of the behavioural problem in school going children of a government school in Wardha district, which is a part of Central India. District Wardha is located in Maharashtra’s vidarbha area. The districts of Amravati, Yavatmal, Chandrapur, and Nagpur are located on the west, north, south, and east, respectively, of the district. There are 6,310 sqkm in the district. 1,391,890 residents live in this area.

Study participants

The school going children aged 15-18 years (both boys and girls) will be taken into consideration as mostly the youngsters have a behavioural problem.

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion

All children who are 15-18 years of age are eligible to participate in the study. Those students who will be present on the data collection day will be included.

Exclusion

Those participants who will show non-willingness to participate in the study and absent on the data collection day will be excluded.

Data sources

Variables:

The study tool will consist of a pre-designed, self-made questionnaire with a quantitative component for the data collection on socio-demographic variables and on the child behaviour of school going children. It will be divided into two sections (Table 1 shows data sources).

Section A: Self-made questionnaire related to socio-demographic details of the children such as name, age, gender, medium of school, standards, type of family.

Section B: Self-made child behaviour checklist.

Measurement

Primary outcome measured will be prevalence of behavioural problem of the children and the secondary outcome will be common behavioural problem in children and factors influencing behavioural change in school-going children.

Data analysis plan

The data will be entered in Microsoft Excel (MS Excel 2010) and analysed by SPSS Version 22 (RRID:SCR_002865) (Statistical Product and Service Solutions). Frequencies and percentages will be presented in the form of tables, graphs.

Bias

Some of the biases that may affect the study include:

Response bias: The children who participate in the study may be more motivated to report or exaggerate certain behaviours than others, leading to inaccurate data.

Recall bias: Participants may not recall previous events or experiences correctly.

Sample size

Sample size is calculated using the following formula:

Alpha (α) = 0.05

Estimated proportion of school going children (p) = 0.872

Estimation error (d) = 0.05

Sample size = 172

Sample size calculated by using above formula with estimated proportion 0.872 with alpha error 0.05 and estimated error 0.05. Thus a sample size of 172 school going children will be used to collect data regarding the behavioural problems in school going children.

Statistical methods

The study will be conducted using simple random sampling method, and two government schools in rural Wardha will be picked randomly. Random selection will be used to choose the first school for data collection. Another school will also employ this method of selecting. The study is open to students between the ages of 15 to 18 who are enrolled in school. The data will be gathered in the form of a Google form, information will be coded into a Microsoft Excel 2010 spread sheet. Statistical analysis will be done by using SPSS version 17 software. Descriptive statistics for Socio-demographic factors will be done using Microsoft office 2021 and data will be calculated in the form of percentages and frequencies. The data will be presented in the form of tables and graphs.

Ethical consideration

Ethical approval for this study (DMIHER (DU)/IEC/2023/640) was provided by the ethical committee of Datta Meghe Institute of Higher Education and Research (DMIHER) Sawangi (deemed to be University) on 11^th February 2023.

Informed written consent will be obtained from all study participants and data will be collected using a questionnaire.

Expected outcomes and results

The key result will be finding the prevalence and factors influencing of the behavioural problems in school going children in the Wardha.

Study status

The data collection process has been completed, now the analysis will be started.

Implication of the study

Study finding will give common behavioural problems with selected child behaviour and association of behavioural problems with selected demographic variables.

Limitations

The study will be limited to children between the age group of 15-18 years. And sample size will be limited to 172.