ABSTRACT

Since the early 1960s, the Mental Health Programme of the World Health Organisation has been actively engaged in improving the diagnosis and classification of mental disorders. Thus, ICD-10 (WHO 1992) contains a group of disorders described as 'Behavioural and emotional disorders with onset usually occurring in childhood and adolescence' and includes 'Conduct Disorders', 'Hyperkinetic Disorders', 'Disorders of Social Functioning' and so on. 'Severe problem behaviour' in schools is most often associated with 'conduct disorders' and characterised by a repetitive and persistent pattern of antisocial, aggressive or defiant conduct such as disobedience, provocative behaviour, severe temper tantrums, excessive fighting or bullying, cruelty, destructiveness, stealing, lying, truancy and fire setting. 5.3 per cent of children were found to have conduct disorder in a recent survey (Meltzer et al 2000). These problems are not only common, but are also persistent, difficult to treat, expensive for the society and have poor prognosis (Kazdin 1993,Robins 1991).