Abstract
Background: The association between thyroid dysfunction and psychiatric disease is well studied. However, the literature regarding the association among children lacks. No researchers have investigated the same in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism among children with psychiatric disease. Methods: This case-control study was conducted among 347 participants (100 children and 108 adults with psychiatric disease, and 139 healthy controls) at Alamal Hospital in Tabuk City, Saudi Arabia during the period from June 2020 to December 2020. All the participants (and the parents if applicable) signed written informed consent. A structured questionnaire was used to collect demographic data if already diagnosed with thyroid disease, the type of psychiatric and thyroid disease, family history of thyroid dysfunction and psychiatric disease if the thyroid disease was detected before the psychiatric abnormality, the subjective improvement of psychiatric disease after the introduction of thyroxine. Results: Thyroid disease was higher among children (37% vs. 14.4%, odd ratio, 3.49, 95% CI, 1.87-6.52) and adults with psychiatric disease (48.1% vs. 14.4%, odd ratio, 5.52, 95% CI, 3.02-10.12 (P-values<0.001). No significant statistical was found between children and adults with psychiatric disease (37% vs. 48.1%, P-value, 0.069, odd ratio, 0.63 95% CI, 0.361.10. Thyroid symptoms started before psychiatric disease in children compared to adults (65.8% vs. 32.4 %). Conclusion: Thyroid disorders were higher among patients with psychiatric disease, with no differences between children and adults. Further larger multicenter studies investigating thyroid disorders among individual common psychiatric diseases are recommended.