Prevalence of Mental Health Problems among School-going Adolescents in Melmaruvathur: An Observational Study

Abstract

Introduction: Around 2.2 billion of the world's population are children and adolescents. Ninety percentage live in low-and middle-income countries, where they make up 30%–50% of the population. This study examines mental health issues and their association with gender in Melmaruvathur, teenage school children. Materials and Methods: After receiving approval from the Ethics Committee, a descriptive cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was carried out on adolescents who were attending school in Melmaruvathur. The participants in the study filled out the questionnaires. The power of the study was set at 80%, and the significance level was set at 0.05. The estimated size of the sample was 500. The duration of the study was approximately 1 ½ years, beginning on June 1, 2021, and ending on December 30, 2022. The age range was anywhere between 11 and 17 years, participants had to be adolescents who attended school. Those who had participated in mental health training programs in the past were not allowed to participate. Results: There were about 43.4% of females and 56.6% of males among the study participants. About 3.0% had very high conduct problems, 5.80% had high conduct problems, 1.4% had very high hyperactivity, around 1.80% had very high emotional problems, around 7.40% had very high peer problems, and 6.80% had very low prosocial. There was no statistically significant difference between the genders regarding conduct problems, hyperactivity problems, emotional problems, peer problems, and prosocial. In the case of females, 77.52% had a total difficulty score that was quite close to the average and in males, 81.53% received a total difficulty score that was quite close to the average. Conclusion: The findings are significant for several reasons, including the understanding of gender-specific vulnerabilities, the creation of youth mental health interventions that are more specifically focused on youth, and the peculiarities of the home setting.