1 in 7 Indians suffered from mental health issues in 2017: Study

According to a new study on mental disorders in India, in 2017, 197 million Indians were suffering from mental disorders, of whom 46 million had depression and 45 million anxiety disorders. In its state-wise analysis, the study found that the prevalence of depressive disorders was highest in Tamil Nadu.

New Delhi:An estimated one in seven Indians suffered from mental disorders of varying severity in 2017 with depression and anxiety being the commonest, according to a study.

The first comprehensive estimates of disease burden due to mental disorders and their trends in every state of India from 1990 published in the Lancet Psychiatry by the India State-Level Disease Burden Initiative show that the contribution of mental disorders to the total disease burden has doubled between 1990 and 2017.

These include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, idiopathic developmental intellectual disability, conduct disorders, and autism.

Depressive disorders were more prevalent in South India

In 2017, 197 million Indians were suffering from mental disorders, of whom 46 million had depression and 45 million anxiety disorders, according to the study whose findings were released on Monday.

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In its State-wise analysis, the study divides different states into three categories on the basis of their socio-demographic index (SDI), i.e low, medium and high SDI States. The SDI is a composite measure of per-capita income, mean education, and fertility rate in women younger than 25 years and is calculated on a scale of one.

TAMIL NADU TOPS IN DEPRESSIVE DISORDERS

• Prevalence of depressive disorders was highest in Tamil Nadu (loss of 836 years per 1 lakh population ), Kerala (loss of 641 years), Goa (loss of 626 years) and Telangana (loss of 756 years) in the high SDI State group and Andhra Pradesh (loss of 793 years) in the middle SDI State group.
• Similarly, anxiety disorders were found to be more common in Kerala (loss of 383 years per 1 lakh population), Himachal Pradesh (loss of 329 years), Tamil Nadu (loss of 325 years), Karnataka (loss of 324 years), Telangana (loss of 324 years), and Maharashtra (loss of 324 years) in the high SDI State group and Andhra Pradesh (loss of 328 years), Manipur (loss of 360 years), and West Bengal (loss of 331 years) in the middle SDI State group.

Depression and anxiety disorders are the commonest mental disorders and their prevalence is increasing across India and is relatively higher in the southern states and in women.

The prevalence of depression is the highest in older adults, which has significant implications for the aging population of India. Depression is also associated with suicide deaths in India, the study stated.

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The prevalence of childhood onset mental disorders such as idiopathic developmental intellectual disability, conduct disorders, and autism was found to be higher in the northern states but is decreasing across India.

MORE WOMEN THAN MEN SUFFER FROM DEPRESSION

The study also found that more women than men suffered from depression (3.9% women vs 2.7% men), anxiety (3.9% of women vs 2.7% men) and eating disorders (0.3% in women vs 0.1% in men), while the prevalence of conduct disorder (1% men vs 0.6% women), autism spectrum disorders (0.5% in men vs 0.2 in women), and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (0.6% in men and 0.2% in women) were substantially higher in males than in females.

The contribution of mental disorders to the total disease burden has doubled in India from 1990 to 2017, indicating the need for implementing effective strategies to control this increasing burden.

The state-specific findings described in this paper highlight the extent of the effort needed in each state to address mental health which could serve as a reference for policy makers to plan approaches for reducing the growing burden of mental disorders in a systematic way.

The trends over about three decades reported in this research paper utilized all available data sources from India, which enables more robust estimates than the estimates based on individual data sources in isolation.

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