Mental health, protective factors and violence among male adolescents: A comparison between urban and rural school students in West Bengal

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 199 (104 urban, 95 rural) male students of classes VIII and IX, of two schools, in urban and rural areas of West Bengal to compare the prevalence of protective factors, mental health issues, and violence among the urban and rural adolescents using a self-administered questionnaire. Higher proportion of urban students than rural (67.3% vs. 62.5%) reported that their guardians understood their problems. Mental health issues like loneliness (17.3% vs. 9.8%), worry (17.3% vs. 10.7%), and suicidal thoughts (19.2% vs. 14.1%) were higher among urban students. Physical fight (53.8% vs. 11.6%), bullying (46.4% vs. 17%), physical attack by family members (46% vs. 17%), and by teachers (53% vs. 10.7%) were all more in urban adolescents. Mental health- and violence-related issues were prevalent more among urban students than those among rural students in spite of having more protective factors suggesting the need of frequent supervision, monitoring, and support of adolescents.

Self-Reported Psychosomatic Complaints In Swedish Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults Living in Rural and Urban Areas: An Internet-Based Survey

“…These results are in line with a study by Samanta et al [45] where rural living appeared protective against development of mental health issues among male adolescents (13-15 years), as well as with an earlier study in New Zealand, where adolescents from larger population centers reported more life event stresses than those from smaller centers [46]. The mechanisms underlying these region-related differences in psychosomatic health cannot be revealed by the current study.…”

Prevalence and correlates of loneliness in India: A systematic review

“…After retrieving and evaluating the full texts, 28 articles did not meet our criteria. At the end of the screening process, 13 articles met all the inclusion and exclusion criteria and were recruited in this systematic review (Anil et al, 2016;Bhogle, 1991;Grover et al, 2019Grover et al, , 2018Malhotra et al, 2019;Mishra et al, 2013;Nayyar and Singh, 2011;Ninan and Gopinath, 2013;Samanta et al, 2012;Shettar et al, 2017;Singh and Mishra, 2009;Susheela et al, 2018;Upmanyu et al, 1994).…”

“…Most (n = 4) studies were conducted in Karnataka (Anil et al, 2016;Ninan and Gopinath, 2013;Shettar et al, 2017;Susheela et al, 2018), followed by Punjab (n = 3) Nayyar and Singh, 2011;Upmanyu et al, 1994), Andhra Pradesh (n = 2) (Bhogle, 1991;Mishra et al, 2013), Delhi (n = 1) (Singh and Mishra, 2009), Haryana (n = 1) (Malhotra et al, 2019), and West Bengal (n = 1) (Samanta et al, 2012). A study by Grover et al included participants from multiple states of India (Grover et al, 2018).…”

“…Columbia suicide severity scale (Grover et al, 2018), patient health questionnaire (Grover et al, 2018), social connectedness scale (Grover et al, 2018), generalized anxiety disorder questionnaire (Grover et al, 2018), vulnerability to abuse screening scale , Bergan Facebook addiction scale (Shettar et al, 2017), Beck depression inventory (Singh and Mishra, 2009), internal-external scale (Nayyar and Singh, 2011), Institute for Personality and Ability Testing (IPAT) self-analysis anxiety scale (Nayyar and Singh, 2011), global school student health survey (Samanta et al, 2012), children attribution style questionnaire (Ninan and Gopinath, 2013), geriatric depression scale (Grover et al, , 2018, activities of daily living scale (Susheela et al, 2018), and self-reported questionnaire (Malhotra et al, 2019;Mishra et al, 2013).…”

“…Moreover, this tool was used to rate the overall quality of the included studies. Among 13 studies included in this review, five were rated as good (Anil et al, 2016;Grover et al, 2019;Malhotra et al, 2019;Mishra et al, 2013;Susheela et al, 2018), seven studies as fair (Bhogle, 1991;Grover et al, 2018;Nayyar and Singh, 2011;Ninan and Gopinath, 2013;Samanta et al, 2012;Shettar et al, 2017;Upmanyu et al, 1994), and one study was rated as poor (Singh and Mishra, 2009) following the quality evaluation using NHLBI tool.…”