An Objective Look at the Presence and Severity of Mental Health Issues in Indian Men in Gujarat

The aim of this paper is to present an objective look at the presence and severity of mental health issue in men across the selected intervention districts in Gujarat and in the COVID-19 era. The survey was undertaken between June 2021 and December 2022. It was largely representative of the population, as 168,639 people were taken from 50,780 households of 7 districts of Gujarat. The survey population aged 15 to 65 years. 70,767 men were screened for anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts (if scores severe on screening). Conditions which they were facing were explored by a semi structured script accompanied with PHQ4 as a screening tool. They were further provided with psychological intervention(s) in the cases where mental health challenges were reported. This paper presents selected findings for the pattern with respect to socio-demographic differences in the male population who reported mental health problems N=2141. Our data showed us that males exhibited a prevalence rate of 3.02%  and we thus decided to take a look into the socio-economic and demographic data we had available. It was found that, unemployed males exhibited more mental health issues than males in other age groups. Illiterate males were more likely to experience severe MH issues. Males who were divorced/separated/widowers were more likely to experience severe and moderate MH issues as a whole than other marital groups.