Study of Mental Health Status of the Family Members of Disappeared Persons of Kashmir

While trying to portray the picture of mayhem and woes of family members of those who disappeared, it fails to fully convey the agony of the survivors. Their emotions are so intense that a normal person can hardly help his emotional shutters. Even a single experience with a family member of a disappeared person makes one to ponder that how unbearable it is to be a mother, father, wife or son of disappeared person. Their search for the disappeared family member along with hardships of daily life, social stigmas, economic and educational needs have left their mental health par below average level. One finds the words of depression, stress, anxiety, sleeplessness and melancholy in their everyday lexicon. With such a despondent picture of family members of disappeared persons in mind, the present attempt was made to study the nature of their mental health. To achieve this objective, data was collected from 217 family members of disappeared persons of Kashmir. The frequency method and t-test were used to obtain the results. The results of the study showed that majority of the family members scored high in negative dimensions of mental health namely, anxiety, depression and loss of behavioral and emotional control and low in positive dimensions of mental health namely, general positive affect, emotional ties and life satisfaction. A significant difference was found in mental health on the basis of gender, age and family type.