Mental Distress among Students of a Private University of Delhi, NCR

Abstract

Background: One of the emerging significant public health problems is mental distress which includes

somatic symptoms such as anxiety and depression. In comparison to the general population, earlier studies

reported higher mental distress among university students. Students having mental distress suffer from poor

academic performance and other learning disabilities. Due to the dearth of literature on the burden of this

problem in India, the present study was done to assess the prevalence of mental distress and its association

with sociodemographic, personal and academic related variables among students of a private university of

Delhi, NCR.

Methods & Materials: A cross-sectional observational study was done on 300 private university students

of Delhi, NCR. We applied the Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20) for the assessment of mental distress

Descriptive and Chi-square statistics were done. p value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Result: The study participants were predominantly females 58.7%. It was also observed that 13% participants

were unsatisfied with admission in the college, 17.3% were unsatisfied with their academic course and

16.3% were unsatisfied regarding coping up with course.

On bivariate analysis it was observed that level of course (p<0.001), history of parental conflict (<0.001),

satisfaction with life(<0.001) showed higher statistically significant association with mental distress.

Similarly, academic variables such as satisfaction with admission to college (p<0.001), satisfaction with

academic course (<0.001), satisfaction with coping up with course (0.003) were also highly statistically

significant.

Conclusion: It is noted that mental distress is common among university students and there is a need for

attention, support and personalized counseling.