According to a recent survey by student magazine Insight, a significant number of students at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B) said mental health problems were common in the institute.
The report read, “According to the National Mental Health Survey 2015-16, which was conducted across 12 states, the prevalence of mental morbidity in the surveyed population of 35000 was 13.7%. This shows how starkly concentrated this issue is in academic institutions, or at least in IIT Bombay.”
On the account of the World Mental Health Day on October 10, the survey was published. The survey consists of anonymous responses that register anonymous responses from students to a range of objective and subjective questions on whether they had experienced negative emotions, for how long, and reasons for feeling such emotions.
“The idea behind the special issue is to get people to talk about mental health and address the stigma around it,” said Amogh Gawaskar, chief editor of Insight IIT-B to Hindustan Times.
The report further highlighted that just 55.4 percent of those affected sought help to tackle their problem. The remaining 44.6 percent of students who did not seek intervention attributed their decision to reasons like “fear of judgement, scepticism about their effectiveness and lack of need for external intervention”.
“The proportion of the students currently suffering from a mental disorder is the most crucial and requires active intervention. More so is the need to highlight the support systems in the institute and otherwise, and through the responses shared, scrutinise their efficacy”, the report further stated.
“The most important thing is to seek professional help. To take the pressure off, students should be encouraged to balance academics with other interests,” said Neha Patel, Juhu-based clinical psychologist.
