Awareness of mental disorders among youth in Delhi

Awareness of mental disorders is also known as Mental health literacy which can be defined as knowledge and beliefs about mental disorders which aid their recognition, management or prevention. Young generation and college going students have unique perceptions about mental illness in every section of the society. They are the future adults of this society and windows of modern India, so their opinions are important indicators of mental health literacy. Aim of the study was to assess the mental health literacy among students of university of Delhi. The study was conducted using a descriptive, exploratory, cross sectional survey design on 100 (50 males and 50 females) postgraduate students from the University of Delhi, India. A semi-structured interview, with a standardized tool, Mental Health Literacy (MHL) questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge, awareness, and attitudes of students towards patients with mental disorders like depression and psychosis. Results: Most of the subjects had well awareness about identification of the patients with mental disorder, whereas as more than half of the subjects had exact awareness to identify depression. Most of the subjects had adequate knowledge and identified poor outcome and prognosis for patients with psychosis as compared to depression if not treated. Stigmatization of subjects towards patient with depression and psychosis was present and was higher for psychosis. Most of the subjects rated psychiatrist and immediate community members as the most reliable help for the patients with depression and psychosis. Conclusions drawn from the study were, overall mental health literacy of the university students in Delhi was found to be adequate, but not satisfactory in the area of risk factors and stigmatization.