Abuse among school going adolescents in three major cities of Pakistan: Is it associated with school performances and mood disorders?

Objective: to assess the proportion of various types of abuses and their association with school performances and psychological stress among adolescents from three major cities of pakistan. methods: the cross-sectional school survey was conducted frommarch to september 2009, comprising adolescent students at six schools in karachi, lahore and quetta. data was collected using a self-administered and pre-tested questionnaire by trained medical students. spss 16 was used for statistical analysis.. results: of the 414 subjects in the study, there were 223(54%) boys and 191(46%) girls with an overall mean age of 14.36 ±1.08 years. in all, 140(33.7%) participants were physically abused and 236(57%) participants were verbally abused in the preceding 12months. besides, 245(59.2%)were involved in physical fight and 195 (47.1%) had suffered injury during the preceding year. there were 171(41.4%) subjects having suffered bullying during the same period. verbal abuse (p=0.05), physical fight (p=0.05) and bullying (p<0.001) were significantly associated with poor school performances among adolescents. physical abuse (p=0.05), verbal abuse (p=0.003), injury (p=0.02) and bullying (p<0.001) were significantly associated with psychological stress. conclusion: various types of abuse were quite prevalent in adolescents that were significantly associated with poor school performance and poor mental health.