Page No 63-67
D.V. Venu Gopal and A.Ashok
Andhra University, Visakhapatnam
Most of the research on the prevalence of problem behaviors in adolescents is
focused on the mainstream sections of the adolescents such as urban/rural
adolescents. However, there is a great need to investigate the prevalence of
problem behaviors in tribal adolescents who have a different set of culture from
the mainstream sections. Drawing on these lines the present study aims at
investigating the prevalence of emotional and behavioral problems in tribal and
non-tribal school going adolescents. 452 adolescents (mean age= 12.5years,
tribals = 50% and girls = 48.9%) completed measures of emotional and behavioral
problems. Results indicated significantly high prevalence of anxiety/depressed,
somatic, withdrawn/depressed, thought problems and attention problems in the
tribal adolescents. However, the pattern of the prevalence of problem behaviors
in both of these was largely same. Rule-breaking behavior was found to be the
most prevalent problems in tribal and non-tribal adolescents