Socio-demographic correlates of persons with schizophrenia seeking care at Mental Hospital: a cross- sectional study from North-East India

---

Original Article

Author Details : Kamal Narayan Kalita, Jyoti Hazarika, Mohan Sharma, Shilpi Saikia, Priyanka Patangia

Volume : 3, Issue : 3, Year : 2017

Article Page : 100-105

Suggest article by email

Get Permission

---

Abstract

Introduction: Schizophrenia is a chronic and debilitating psychiatric illness affecting about one percent of the world’s general population. It needs continuous care as it is mostly a life time disorder. Disability associated with it is also very high. Multiple factors influence help seeking nature of these groups of patients and these needs to be studied so that suitable public health program can be designed and it appeals the users.
Aims and Objectives: This study was undertaken to identify the socio-demographic correlates of schizophrenia in a group of patients attending a mental hospital.
Materials and Method: This cross sectional study was carried out at the outpatient department of a psychiatric hospital in North East India. Study was approved by Institutional Ethical Committee. Written consents were obtained from each participant. Purposive sampling technique was used. Socio demographic and clinical parameters were collected in a pre designed proforma. Diagnosis of schizophrenia was done by trained psychiatrists using ICD-10 Classification of mental and behavioural Disorders (clinical descriptions and diagnostic guidelines). This was further re evaluated by the standardized Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) version 6.0 (MINI v6.0). The psychiatric symptoms were assessed with BPRS rating and subjects high values in BPRS were excluded. Data analysis was done by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0.
Results: A total of 511 cases were included out of 554 subjects. Majority of the sample were males (70.6%), 83.4% was in age group of 21-40 years and were mostly from rural areas. Only 8% had formal employed status and majority were atleast matriculate. Hindu subjects were more in the group and majority had low family income.
Conclusion: Schizophrenia is a disease of the young and it usually runs a chronic course having significant impact on someone’s life. The help-seeking nature of this disorder may be influenced by many socio economic factors including availability and acceptability of services, gender, age, socio economic condition, educational status, marital status and clinical status of the patients.

Keywords: Schizophrenia, Socio demographic profile, Mental hospital, BPRS, MINI, Help seeking

How to cite : Kalita K N, Hazarika J, Sharma M, Saikia S, Patangia P, Socio-demographic correlates of persons with schizophrenia seeking care at Mental Hospital: a cross- sectional study from North-East India. IP Indian J Neurosci 2017;3(3):100-105

This is an Open Access (OA) journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.