Indian mothers with mentally challenged children were found to suffer from more depression and anxiety levels as compared to others in the world. The reason is that it is mostly the mothers who bear the burden and stress of bringing up an underprivileged child in Indian society. Mothers also experience distress due to irreversibility of the intellectual disability, social stigma, anticipation of future and caring demand, said a research published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry.
About 85 per cent of the Indian mothers with mentally ill children suffered from depression. Researchers claimed this prevalence was much higher than the ones reported by Sweden (45-50 per cent), Turkey (55.3 per cent), Asian British (47 per cent), Nigeria (10.4 per cent) British and Qatar.
Saying that mental illness has a huge psychological impact on the mothers, the study recommended medical services offered to the mentally ill child should also be extended to the family, especially to the mothers, who are the main caretakers. Counselling services, treatments, and regular screening of the mothers of the mentally retarded should also be included in the protocol for management of mental retardation.
Several other studies have found that maternal depression has a greater impact on such children with intellectual disability and treatment of mother’s depression may benefit the child. In fact, better quality of information given to parents about their child’s illness and recovery process reduces feelings of insecurity and helplessness. In fact, another study has found that parents who received information and advice in caring for their disabled children, reported positive feelings toward caring for their children. Such an intervention helps the mothers to cope faster through the caring skills taught to them.
The Indian study by Amit Nagarkar, Jagdish Prashad Sharma, SK Tandon, Pritesh Goutam was conducted in the Psychiatry outpatient department of R. D. Gardi Medical College (Ujjain) where patients from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and other neighbouring States seek clinical services.
It was noticed that the higher the severity of retardation, the more was depression level in mothers. 100 per cent of patients with severe retardation had depression in their mothers. But the prevalence of depression was comparatively lower, 94.4 per cent in mothers of patients with moderate retardation; and was least 77 per cent in those with mild retardation. Depression was even higher among mothers (87 per cent) whose child had a significant co-morbidity. Depression was more prevalent among mothers of the female mentally ill children. Possibly since female mentally challenged patients are considered a social burden in India.
The degree of the child’s dependency on the mother in daily activities of life — toileting, bathing, feeding, clothing and mobility — increase the burden of caring. Caring for children with multiple disabilities increases the maternal caregiving hours. Co-morbidities such as epilepsy, cerebral palsy and psychosis make the children dependent on their caretakers for life. The presence of any chronic illness in the mentally disabled child is found to be one of the predictors for psychiatric morbidity in the mother.
Talking about this study senior psychiatrist Dr Sameer Parikh, who is also chief of Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences in Delhi’s Fortis Hospitals, said mental health has remained a neglected area in India both in terms of funding and policy making. “The rehabilitation and recovery processes of such children slow and there are not sufficient centres. As a result, a parent in India having a special child faces problems of school admission, stereotyping, stigmatising, discrimination which leads to a lot of stress. There are not just enough mechanisms to support such children and their parents. While in India we have very good health facilities for several other diseases, mental health remains neglected area. There are 3,500-3,600 psychiatrists in India compared to 10,000 in France,” said Dr Parikh.