Study of Psychiatric Morbidity among Health Professionals of Different Groups Using the General Health Questionnaire-28: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: Psychological stress is well documented among the health care professionals. An assessment of individuals in this field is warranted for screening of minor psychiatric disorders which impedes their quality of life, adversely affects the patients being treated and adds to the burden of health care costs. Aims and Objectives: 1. To assess psychiatric morbidity in the different group of health professionals. 2. To compare psychiatric morbidity in government and private set up. Materials and Method: A sample of 448 health professionals completed the GHQ-28 which comprised of  64 dentists, 64 medicine & allied group, 85 surgery & allied group, 88 pre and Para clinical group , 71 nursing group and 76 medical officers(MO) and program officers(PO) group . Descriptive statistics was used. Frequencies and percentages were calculated and Chi square test was applied to find significant relationship between the variables. Results: Psychiatric morbidity defined as ‘caseness’ was present in 41.1% of the sample. The morbidity was maximum in the age group 25-30 (45%) and more among females (45.6%). The group of MO & PO reported highest distress (51.3%) while lowest was reported in the pre and paraclinical group (23.9%). Higher ‘caseness’ was reported in the government sector (45.8%). The relationship between ‘caseness’ and occupation was found to be statistically significant. Conclusion: The Medical officer & Program officer group and nursing group suffer from greater degree of morbidity probably due to increased workload and working environment. Further studies with larger sample are required to assess significant relation between gender and sector of work with psychiatric morbidity.