An Objective Look at The Presence and Severity of Mental Health Issues in Indian Women in Delhi, Gujarat and Jharkhand

The aim of this paper is to present an objective look at the presence and severity of mental health issues in Indian women, across the selected intervention districts in Delhi, Gujarat and Jharkhand in the COVID-19 era. The survey was undertaken between June 2021 and October 2022. It was largely representative of the population, as 577,239 people were taken from households of 26 districts of Delhi, Jharkhand and Gujarat. The survey population aged 15 to 65 years. 473,970 people 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. The overall response rate was 87.79%. This paper presents selected findings for the pattern with respect to socio-demographic differences in the female population who reported mental health problems N=19778. Our data showed us that females exhibited a prevalence rate of 8.4% versus males who exhibited a prevalence rate of 5.8% and thus we decided to have a look at whether we could observe trends in the female population. It was found that, females in the <18 group were more likely to experience severe and moderate MH issues as whole than females in other age groups. Unmarried females or females who were divorced, separated or widowed were more likely to experience severe MH issues. Females in active employment are more likely experience severe and moderate MH issues as a whole than other occupational groups.