Stress and Rural Mental Health

Abstract

Stress and rural are difficult words to define conceptually, and this chapter gives some ideas about operational definitions to use in research framework. A brief overview on evolutions of stress concept has been provided. Rural stress is conceptualized as stress unique to rural area and stress in the rural context but common to all. The very factors, which define rural areas, may sometimes work as perpetuating factors for stress in rural population. The manifestations of stress can be both physical and psychological and depend largely on person’s coping abilities. As manifestations are seen as “subthreshold” for categorical classificatory systems, research is focused on “disorders” rather than manifestations of stress, sometimes giving an impression that stress may not be important despite significant burden to the individual from the symptoms. Review of the literature on “stress” reveals that it has been focused mainly in urban populations when in reality the majority of population is scattered around in rural areas. Farming is exclusively a rural activity and hence farming stress is discussed in a separate section. It is important to recognize that seasonal variations in farming can affect the prevalence of stress manifestations throughout the year. Most interventions for rural stress are extrapolation from general stress research and prescriptive with limited empirical evidence. Therefore any suggested interventions need to be adapted carefully to rural settings.