National Mental Health Survey of India 2015-16

NMHS
awareness about mental health problems
and the stigma attached to it has an adverse
effect on health seeking behaviour. Health
education can be disseminated by using different
audio-visual aids, (television, radio,
social media, posters, flannel graphs, exhibits
etc.) and by using different methods (one
on one basis, role plays, lectures to groups
of people, using folk methods etc.) as well
as social media .These methods were documented
for availability at peripheral levels.
Domain 8 deals with the availability of different
formats (pamphlet, brochure, poster,
video, etc.,) with respect to different disorders
and its availability in local languages.
To factor in the gaining popularity of the use
of social media an additional question was
included regarding the extent of its use.
Domain 9: The questions in Domain 9 is on
mental health indicators and is derived from
the WHO atlas. It indicates the extent of use
of available data for purposes of programme
development. The focus was on the presence
of a specific mental health report which
contains information on various aspects of
the mental health programme, resources
for mental health and the burden of mental
health problems in the state, etc.,
Domain 10: Monitoring and evaluation
are the twin pillars indicating the status of
health programmes and services. Periodic
evaluation helps to alter strategies, redefine
objectives and modify one or
more components of the programme.
Thus, domain 10 documents whether any
evaluation of mental Health systems and
care was undertaken and its details.
4.3.5 Data Sources
It was evident from our earlier work that
the data required for assessing the mental
health systems under different domains
could not be obtained from a single source.
Even within each domain, a combination of
data sources rather than a single data source
was required. There were certain areas
where precise data was not available or was
difficult to obtain from routine data sources.
Thus, multiple sources and methods were
required to provide a clear and broad picture
of a mental health system.
For SMHSA, data was collected by actively
involving and interacting with key persons
at different levels of the health system.
A communication was issued by the
Chairperson of NTAG inviting all concerned
state health departments to participate and
cooperate in the mental health systems
assessment. A list of all relevant data
sources for each item along with guidelines
was prepared by the NIMHANS team and
provided to the state teams. The different
sources of data included a review of - census
documents and abstracts, state programme
implementation plans, different records
/ documents in state health departments,
State Directorate of Economics and Statistics,
State Crime Records Bureau, mental health
programme reports, data from different
state bodies like the state medical council,
state pollution control board, professional
bodies like medical, psychiatric and
nursing associations, affidavits filed by the
respective states and several others. (Refer
to annexure)
In addition, an open search was undertaken
to obtain the relevant information for the
respective state. Further, the state MHSA
coordinator and / or PI attended district level
meetings, visited several of these offices and
departments personally.
Based on their availability, data sources were
classified at different levels into national /
SMHSA
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