Bakcground & Objectives: A psychiatric disorder is an illness with psychogical or behavioral manifestations accompanied with impaired functioning. The prevalence of psychiatric disorders is reported up to 30% in some communities. Regarding the high prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the society especially the high number of people referring to psychiatric commissions where some cases malinger with the aim of getting some secondary advantages, it seems necessary to have comprehensive information about the prevalence of these disorders. This study was an attempt to determine the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among people to psychiatric commission of Fatemi hospital, Ardabil.

 Methods: This descriptive study was conducted on people referring to psychiatry commission of Fatemi hospital from 2001 until 2003. A questionnaire filled through interviewing the subjects was used to collect the data. These data were analyzed by SPSS using descriptive statistics.

 Results: In this research out of 315 patients, the highest frequency related to mental retards with 68 (25.3%) cases. 60 (22.3%) cases had behavioral disorder, 27 (10%) stammering 26 (9.7%) personality disorders, 25 (9.3%) anxity disorders, 20 (7.4% schizophrenia, 11 (4.1%) somatoform disorder, 10 (3.7%) borderline IQ, 8 (2.9%) nevrosis, 6 (2.2%) histertic disorder, 4 (1.4%) sleep disorders and 3 (1.1%) acute psychosis. Also, 28 (8%) people referred for getting exemption from military service only 6 (21%) of whom had the qualifications for exemption. Moreover, 17 (5.3% of all the subjects were disabled.

 Conclusions: No significant relationship was found between age, sex, education, residence and job with psychiatric disorders. However, there was a significant relationship between marital status and disablement with psychiatric disorders. The most common causes of referring to the psychiatry commission were mental retardness and histery whereas sleep disorders and psychosis were the least important ones.