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Impact of Community Interventions on the Social Representation of Depression in Rural Gujarat

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Abstract

There is a pressing need to develop community interventions that will address stigma against mental illness in rural India. This cross-sectional study will compare social representations of depression in villages where educational programs have targeted mental illness and stigma versus control villages. Participants from the villages exposed to the educational interventions (n = 146) will be compared with a sample from six control villages (n = 187) in the same geographic region, using a structured questionnaire. The impact of the intervention as a predictor for questionnaire score will be assessed along with socio-demographic variables. The intervention villages showed higher levels of literacy regarding depression and lower levels of stigma, after adjusting for all other socio-demographic variables. While some demographic factors associated with the knowledge and attitudes towards depression are not modifiable, our research provides evidence in favor of the positive influence a community grassroots intervention can have on mental health literacy in rural settings.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to The MINDS Foundation, the Department of Psychiatry at SVU, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Arnhold Global Health Institute for their support; Megha Dalal for her crucial role as interpreter and interviewing participants; Dr. Hung-Mo Lin, from the Department of Population Health Science and Policy at Mount Sinai for her expertise and guidance in statistical analysis; and the villages and its members for their time and cooperation to this study.

Conflict of interest

All authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Funding

Arnhold Global Health Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Partnering Institutions

The MINDS Foundation (Vadodara, Gujarat)/Sumandeep Vidyapeeth/Dhiraj General Hospital (Vadodara, Gujarat, India), Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York, USA).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    I. Mindlis, J. Schuetz-Mueller, A. Coleman & C. L. Katz

  2. The MINDS Foundation, Boston, MA, USA

    S. Shah & R. Appasani

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  1. I. Mindlis
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  2. J. Schuetz-Mueller
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  3. S. Shah
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  4. R. Appasani
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  5. A. Coleman
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  6. C. L. Katz
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Correspondence to I. Mindlis.

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Mindlis, I., Schuetz-Mueller, J., Shah, S. et al. Impact of Community Interventions on the Social Representation of Depression in Rural Gujarat. Psychiatr Q 86, 419–433 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11126-015-9342-x

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