Title

Common Mental Health Morbidities Among Married Women Attending A Rural Health Training Centre.

Authors

Vinay J, Vijay Kumar A G, Vinay H R, Raghavendra S K, Smitha Rani.

 Abstract

Background: Women's equality and empowerment are among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations. Women's health plays a decisive role to attain the set goal. Promoting mental health and wellbeing is found to reinforce empowerment. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of common mental health morbidities among married women. Method: The study involved 500 married women in the age group of 18-60 years attending the Rural Health Training Centre of a medical college using the purposive sampling method. The study was conducted for one year. General Health Questionnaire-12 was used to assess the mental health morbidities. Those with a score > 4 underwent psychiatrist evaluation using ICD-10 criteria for diagnosis. Conclusion: The most common mental health morbidity among the women was depression which was found to be 13% followed by generalized anxiety disorder which was 6.8%. However, other mental health morbidities such as panic disorder, dysthymia, panic attacks, phobia and obsessive-compulsive disorder were observed in less than 5% of the study population. Implementation of mental health policies that support women's mental health is critical for overall societal development.

 Keywords

Common mental health morbidity, Married women, Sustainable development goal, Medicolegal Aspects.

 DOI