Seventy per cent of callers to a mental health rehabilitation helpline desk were men, said the mental health bulletin by the Social Justice and Empowerment (SJE) Ministry.
As per a report by The Hindu, a large number of callers to mental health rehabilitation helpline were men, which included around 32% of young adults or college students.
The 'Kiran' Mental health rehabilitation helpline was launched on September 7, 2020, by the Social Justice and Empowerment (SJE) Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot. From September 16, 2020, to January 15, 2021, the helpline received 13,550 new calls, of which 70.5% were from males and 29.5% from females, the report said.
The report said that around 65.9% had a "milder nature of distress", while 26.5% were "moderately distressed" and 7.6% were "severely distressed". Nearly, 32.3% of the callers were students, while 15.2% were self-employed, 27.1% were employed, 23.3% were unemployed, 1.4% were home-makers and 0.7% did not reveal the information.
“Majorly the challenges faced by the callers were related to anxiety (28.5%) and depression (25.5%); while few others included pandemic-related challenges (7.8%), suicidal tendency (2.8%), substance abuse (3.4%) and others miscellaneous (32%),” it added.
The majority of people were in the age group of 15 to 40 years, while 18.1% were older, in the 41 to 60 age group.
The helpline also has the option of making an appointment if the caller needs special attention.
It was also observed that the majority of the calls were from the North zone (40.32%), followed by West (27.08%), South (16.99%), East (11.28%), and North East (4.33%).
A clinical psychologist of the DEPwD working on the helpline desk told The Hindu that most of the calls had been from "young adults".
The 24/7 helpline offers early screening, psychological first-aid, psychological support, distress management, mental well-being, psychological crisis management services, and referrals to mental health experts and is operated by 81 front-line professionals, apart from volunteer psychiatrists, clinical and rehabilitation psychologists, the Ministry report said.
