Referral profile of a child development clinic in northern India.

Objective: To delineate the demographic and clinical profile of children referred to a Child Development Clinic (CDC) of a tertiary care public hospital in India.
Methods: A retrospective review of medical records of all the cases referred to CDC in the year 2009 was conducted.
Results: Out of the 792 children referred to CDC, complete medical records were available in 641 cases, which comprised the study population. 66% were males and mean age at referral was 54.06 ± 44.4 months. 68.64% children had global developmental delay or mental retardation, majority (51.1%) of them having severe or profound retardation. 168 (26.2%) patients had various forms of cerebral palsy, with 39.3% being quadriplegics and 121 (18.9%) patients had pervasive developmental disorders. Only, 1.2% of cases had isolated motor delay and 2.9% had developmental language disorder.
Conclusions: This study shows that in developing countries the proportion of children referred to CDC with severe disabling conditions is high and a significant proportion of these children have pervasive developmental disorders. This study provides baseline data for further planning of services for these children in the authors' region.