Objectives: Learning disorders are new clinical and therapeutic issues facing child psychiatrists. The problem of learning disorders becomes more complex in the presence of comorbid psychiatric disorders. In Tunisia, studies of psychiatric disorders comorbid in children with learning disorders remain missing. As well, this study was conducted to determine the comorbidity of psychiatric disorders and learning disorders and the factors associated with this comorbidity.
Materials and Methods: The present study was cross-sectional, descriptive, comparative and analytical, involving 56 students with learning disorders (mean age = 10.43). These students benefited from a semi-structured child psychiatric interview based on the criteria of the DSM-VI-TR, in the presence of one or both parents. Similarly, individual, sociodemographic, family and perinatal data were collected using a predetermined form. Two groups of children were identified so: a first group of 24 children with learning disorders without psychiatric comorbidity and a second group of 32 students with learning disorders with psychiatric comorbidity. Data entry was performed using the epidemiology and statistics software SPSS. The descriptive study identified frequencies for qualitative variables and means for the quantitative variables. The analytical study was to compare the two groups in our sample, with a univariate analysis, search for possible correlations between the variable group and different variables.
Results: Psychiatric comorbidity was found in 57% of cases. These were anxiety disorders in 34% of cases, enuresis in 25% of cases, language disorders in 20% of cases, major depressive episode in 7% of cases, oppositional defiant disorder in 6% of cases, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in 6% of cases, tic disorder in 3.6% of cases and encopresis in 1.8% of cases. The psychiatric comorbidity was not correlated with any of the factors studied (individual, demographic, familial, perinatal).
Conclusions: The results of this study are consistent with data from the literature and involve systematic search for psychiatric disorders in children with learning disorders. Likewise, pediatric psychiatrist should consider exploring the trail of learning disorders in any child with psychopathology. These children should receive a global care considering this comorbidity.