Help seeking process among children attending psychiatry clinic in Tirana,Albania

Objective: the goal of this study was to investigate all the potential routes to child/adolescent psychiatry clinic-university hospital center (capc-uhc) in tirana. the article provides demographic data,as well as further information on the types and amounts of services children/adolescents received during the process of seeking help related to different diagnoses. method: the study was conducted in capc-uhc in tirana,during september 2006-september 2007. data were collected from 162 children and their parents using strengths and difficulties questionnaire (sdq) and pathways encounter form. the sample consisted of 53.1% (86) males and 46.9% (76) females. the mean age was 9.5 + 4.4 years. results: out of the total number of cases that sought care to capc; 55,6% were referred by parents themselves,while the rest were referred by others. there was a significant effect of gender to intervals from the onset of problem to the first career (f = 10.803,p=0.001),as well as a significant effect of gender to total time intervals from the onset till the specialist of child mental health problem (f = 6.742,p=0.01). conclusions: this is the first study investigating the help seeking process to psychiatric care in capc tirana-albania and may serve as a good start in generating evidence based on child/adolescent mental health service. further multicentre studies will enhance the values of the findings,since the present study was performed in a single service,and in a setting lacking previous works with similar scope that could have served as references.