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Depression study: AIIMS sent figures from just 1 centre
The study based on the World Health Organization’s World Mental Health Survey Initiative, which says that India has the highest rate of major depression in the world, has been rubbished by Union Health Ministry officials, who said that the figures are not representative of the pan India scenario.
The study, ‘Cross-national epidemiology of DSM-IV major depressive episode’, based on interviews of nearly 90,000 subjects across 18 countries with different income levels, was published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Medicine by Biomed Central.
According to the study, the average lifetime rates of depression were found to be 14.6 per cent in 10 high income countries, and 11.1 per cent in eight low- to middle-income countries. Lifetime incidents of what was identified as Major Depressive Episodes (MDE), were highest among Indians — at 35.9 per cent.
ndian officials on Wednesday said the figure did not represent the entire country. A total of 11 centres across India participated in WHO’s Mental Health Survey conducted from 2000-05, under the aegis of the Union Health Ministry. But ministry authorities said AIIMS, which was entrusted with the task of tabulating the data, did not forward the data of all the centres to the Harvard Medical School, nodal centre of the survey.
Confirming this, Dr Rajesh Sagar, associate professor of psychiatry at AIIMS and incharge of the WHO’s survey in India, said, “Data was only sent from JIPMER, Puducherry. So it is incorrect to say that this particular study represented the entire country.” He declined to give reasons why data from other centres, including AIIMS, NIMHANS in Bangalore, PGI in Chandigarh and the Central Institute of Psychiatry in Ranchi, were not considered fit for the study.
The sample size of the Indian subjects in both phases of the study was nearly half the average sample size among the 18 countries. While the average sample size in phase one of the study was 4946.50, a total of 2,992 Indian subjects were reported for it. In phase two, 1,373 subjects were studied, compared to an average of 2586.77.
Dean of Research at AIIMS Dr A B Dey said officially, AIIMS was not responsible for the Indian figures reported since the study was not authored by any faculty at the institute. The Indian author of the study was Dr Jagdish Kaur from the Directorate General of Health Services.
Senior officials at the ministry said though the percentages of MDE who were screen positive for depression were highest in India, other indicators such as the mean screen positive percentage in India was only 25 per cent, “All these figures have to be seen together, to avoid any statistical errors,” a senior official said.
Another official said, “There were a lot of disagreements between DGHS and AIIMS on the matter, and AIIMS sent the data without any intimation to the ministry. It is unfortunate that because of these problems, a true picture of the mental health problem in India have not emerged.”
Depression study: AIIMS sent figures from just 1 centre - Indian Express
'Indians most depressed': Govt rubbishes WHO study
The Union health ministry on Thursday rejected media reports which cited a World Health Organisation-sponsored study to claim that Indians were the most depressed in the world.
After conducting a thorough analysis of the report titled "Cross-national Epidemiology of DSM-IV Major Depressive Episode (MDE)", published in BMC Medicine Journal, top health ministry officials on Thursday said the media reports, which suggested that Indians as the most depressed globally, "were gross misprepresentation of the data in the WHO study."
In an elaborate clarification issued on Thursday, the ministry said the lifetime prevalence of depression among Indians, that too among the respondents from Pondicherry (now Puducherry) - the only area covered by the WHO report, was just 9 per cent and not 36 per cent, as claimed by the news reports.
"The reports in the media are based on complete misrepresentation of the facts and picked up after wrongly reading the columns in the survey data," said a ministry release issued in New Delhi.
"The figure of 12 month prevalence (4.5 per cent) and lifetime prevalence (9 per cent) of MDE in India [ Images ] is not representative of the country as this figure is based upon the study data of Puducherry which has different socio-demographic indicators compared to rest of the India. Hence, the findings of the study cannot be generalised to the whole country," the release stated.
'Indians most depressed': Govt rubbishes WHO study - Rediff.com India News
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