Abstract: This paper investigates the prevalence of common mental health (MH) disorders among women in rural Maharashtra while examining their coping styles along with the potential barriers to receiving mental health care and their preference for MH interventions. Using telephonic surveys, data were collected from 1,003 participants ( M age = 38.14, SD age = 8.93, range age = 20–67) on symptoms associated with depression, anxiety, stress, somatic concerns, perceived coping, and social desirability, among others. Aligned with earlier research, somatic symptoms were frequently prevalent among this population and were associated with depression and anxiety. Common barriers to seeking mental health support included a lack of knowledge regarding treatments (intrapersonal-barrier), concerns about the community’s response to the one seeking help (interpersonal-barrier), and lack of funds to seek MH services (logistical-barrier). Written and visual material explaining mental health concerns was the most commonly preferred MH intervention. Proactive coping was most often used, followed by instrumental and avoidance-based coping. Further, proactive coping was associated with lower MH symptoms such as depression, whereas avoidance-based coping was associated with higher levels of MH symptoms. Future research can leverage these results to adopt suitable MH interventions for rural populations in India and consider probable barriers to implementation and uptake.
Ghewade et al. (Wed,) studied this question.