Jemds.com Original Article J. Evolution Med. Dent. Sci./ eISSN- 2278-4802, pISSN- 2278-4748/ Vol. 5/ Issue 54/ July 07, 2016 Page 3640 SURVEY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS AMONG THE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF ARTS AND SCIENCE COLLEGES IN MANGALORE, INDIA Aneesh Bhat 1 , Praveen Jain 2 , Anish Cherian 3 , Divya Prabha D’Souza 4 , Shishir Kumar 5 , Christofer Thomas 6 , Chriss Thomas 7 , Satheesh Rao 8 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, K. S. Hegde Medical Academy, Mangalore. 2 Lecturer, Department of Psychiatry, K. S. Hegde Medical Academy, Mangalore. 3 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, K. S. Hegde Medical Academy, Mangalore. 4 Research Associate, Department of Psychiatry, K. S. Hegde Medical Academy, Mangalore. 5 Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, K. S. Hegde Medical Academy, Mangalore. 6 Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, Sapthagiri Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Bangalore, India. 7 Senior Librarian, College of Nursing, Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Centre, Trissur, India. 8 Professor, Department of Psychiatry, K. S. Hegde Medical Academy, Mangalore. ABSTRACT BACKGROUND There is paucity of data related to the psychological and physical status of undergraduate college students in India. METHOD The sample consisted of 2708 undergraduate students of various arts and science colleges across the city of Mangalore, Karnataka. The study was approved by Nitte University Institutional Ethics Committee and permission was sought from the concerned colleges. Students were cross-sectionally assessed with a specially constructed semi-structured proforma and SRQ-20 (WHO), which was self-administered by the students after giving the students brief instructions. The score of 6 was taken as cut off for the SRQ screening purpose. The score of 6 and above indicates psychological morbidity and need for further detailed evaluation. RESULTS Of the 2708 participants who took part in the study, 64.1% (n=1736) were females and 35.9% (n=972) were males. The mean age of participants was 18.6±1.15 years. 75.6% students were staying at home. Nearly 7.6% of students were using alcohol or some other form of substances. Percentage of students with SRQ scores of 6 and above was 37.9%, which indicates that those many students were having psychological distress and needed further detailed evaluation psychiatrically. On SRQ individual item score, it was found that 42.8% had regular headaches, 43.3% always felt nervous, worried, and tense, 32.2% felt tired all the time. All these are somatic symptoms of depression in students. Alarming finding was 15.6% of students felt to end their life, which indicates suicidal risk among students and indirectly points towards the unnoticed depression among them. CONCLUSION Our results show that the psychiatric morbidity like depression, suicidal ideation, and somatic symptoms of psychiatric illness is very high among undergraduate college students and needs to be addressed very seriously at institutional level and also at policy level by educational department and colleges. KEYWORDS SRQ, Undergraduate, Students, CV Depression. HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE: Bhat A, Jain P, Cherian A, et al. Survey of psychological distress among the undergraduate students of arts and science colleges in Mangalore, India. J. Evolution Med. Dent. Sci. 2016;5(54):3640-3644, DOI: 10.14260/jemds/2016/839 INTRODUCTION Undergraduate students usually come under the age group of 16-23 years. This is the adolescent to adult transition phase in life of every individual. This age is associated with numerous changes, which very actively occur in physical, psychological, social, educational, family, friends, and relationship domains. Thus, because of these constant changes in all the domains of life, individual is more stressed and also faces tremendous mental pressure from all areas of life [1] . Financial or Other, Competing Interest: None. Submission 25-05-2016, Peer Review 19-06-2016, Acceptance 25-06-2016, Published 07-07-2016. Corresponding Author: Dr. Aneesh Bhat, Flat 005, Landlinks Paradise 1 Apartment, Derebail, Konchady, Mangalore-575008, Karnataka. E-mail: bhataneesh@gmail.com DOI: 10.14260/jemds/2016/839 Undergraduate students are more prone to such type of psychological stress because of competitive academic curriculum, pressure to perform, etc. making it the most important source of chronic and acute stress for young people in both Western and Asian countries. It has significant association with mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation in the students of this age group. [1,2,3] . This age group is more prone to suffer from mental distress leading to onset of mental disorders like depression, anxiety, psychosis, substance use, suicide etc. This age is very crucial because most of the psychiatric disorders have their onset in this age group. [4] . Thus, among all psychiatric conditions, depression is the most common disorder with lifetime prevalence of 16.2% and 12 month prevalence of 6.6% in general population. [5] Depressive disorder has become a common mental health problem in college students all over the world with an estimated 1 year prevalence of 4-5% in mid-to- late adolescence. [6,7]