Psychosocial Trend of Mental Illness in Nepal

Abstract

Background: In Nepal mental health service is least developed and neglected by government or public in comparison to physical health. In this context, this study may play an important role to support mental health program planning in the community where people are suffering and the psychosocial intervention is needed. Methods: In this study 330 sample population was selected. Among them 300 population were torture survivor of mid and far western region and 30 sample population were non-tortured. They were selected randomly. In this study B. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder questions K 22-K 45 was used to detect the post traumatic stress disorder reactions and World Health Organization-DAS-II Core questions was used to detect the condition of disability among the psychiatric patients. Results: Among the 300 tortured sample population, 34 (10.30%) had acute type, 18 (5.45%) had chronic and 277 (83.93%) had delayed type of post traumatic stress disorder symptoms in which the respondents were suffering for more than a year. Among the tortured population, 11.74% had experienced very bad overall health condition. Due to their health problems 12.33% had experience severe difficulties for learning new tasks. Similarly 29.7% of the respondents were totally unable to come out for their usual activities. Among the non-tortured population, 7(23.33%),6(20%), 10 (33.33%), 11 (36.67%), 6 (20%), 5(16.67%) respondents felt difficult for taking care of household responsibilities, learning new tasks, joining social activities, emotion affected by health problem concentration and long distance respectively. Conclusions: The community mental or general health services for their crisis intervention in the conflicting areas by concerned organizations need to be provided. Keywords: disability; mental health; non-torture; post traumatic stress disorder; psychosocial; services; torture.