BACKGROUND FACTORS AND SYMPTOM PRESENTATION IN A CHILD GUIDANCE CLINIC

The study undertook to evaluate the kinds of family utilizing the services of the Children's Clinic of the Institute of Living. In line with the previous investigation of Roach, Gurrslin and Hunt, 5 demographic factors were examined in 239 clinic patients. These were (a) sex of child, (b) family size, (c) occupation of major wage earner, (d) race and (e) religion. In addition, an effort was made to categorize presenting symptoms. The distribution of each of these descriptive characteristics in the clinic population was compared with census figures for the general population of the Greater Hartford area. The pattern of presenting symptoms found in the Hartford Clinic was contrasted with the results of the previous study. An effort was also made to determine whether these factors and the various kinds of presenting complaints were related in any way. It was found that the Hartford Clinic group did not always conform to general population expectation, particularly with respect to composition by sex, and number of children in the family and also differed from the Buffalo clinic. Statistically significant associations were obtained between occupational level and race and the symptom categories subsuming acting out and social withdrawal types of behavior.