Rising mental illness issues among Delhi's student population

A newly released survey points to an alarming rise of mental health problems among Delhi's college going youth. Released on Thursday, by Dr. Sunil Mittal of the Cosmos Institute of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences, which surveyed students between the ages of 18-25 years of age, the results show that 64.6 percent of students reported symptoms of depression and 51.6 percent of anxiety.

The CIMBS survey's sample size is admittedly small for its scope, 500 students from five "prominent" universities, whose names were not revealed, across Delhi-NCR. However, speaking to dna, Dr. Mittal stressed on the fact that his team made sure to interact with a large cross section of students, from all stratas of society, and also worked to avoid a biased selection of people. He said that instead of only inviting students to come talk to them, which generally results in those who are aware of their mental health problems stepping forward, leading to a bias in the data, they also reached out to peer leaders, popular kids to spread the word, approached students on the basis of recommendations made by friends and/or teachers so as to reach out to as many kids as possible.

However, so that the sample size didn't get too small on stratifying it, Dr. Mittal said they did not look at socio-economic backgrounds of students. The comparisons are between genders.

The study also says that 17.8 percent of the students had thoughts about suicide and self harm. Among the sample size, 12.8 percent of men and 22 percent of women had these thoughts.

Women, according to the survey, were more prone to varying mental health issues than men, except in cases of substance abuse and addictions, where the numbers were equally split.

Among the 20 percent of those abusing alcohol and tobacco, 53 percent were men and 47 percent were women. However, what was worrying according to Mittal was the 6 percent of student population experimenting with drugs including cannabis, cocaine, opioids, stimulants. If extrapolated from their sample size, he said, to the actual student population in Delhi-NCR, that would mean huge numbers.

Five percent of the students screened also reported symptoms of major psychotic disorders.

Sleep disturbance, which may seem innocuous, but is highly detrimental for mental health, was found among 34 percent of women and 15.7 percent of men. Sleep disturbance, said Mittal could be a symptom of "underlying psychiatric disorder, and may need further evaluation".

Students, without fully developed stress coping mechanisms, also reported relationship distress. 43.2 percent students had trouble coping with relationships with peers, friends, family, with 55 percent of them women.

Though the survey team said that the students across class were found with mental health problems, whether at beginning stages or chronic, they refrained from going into their socio-economic factors.

An upside of the survey, said Mittal, was the fact that more students now, than a few years ago, were willing to speak about mental health. At least some of the stigma seemed to be gone. However, he stressed greatly on the need of mental health education on campuses, so that friends and peers could encourage each other to seek out help.