A study on psychosocial problems among adolescents in urban slums in Kolkata, West Bengal

Abstract

Background: Puberty is the unique stage of growth and development associated with the social and psychological changes referred to as adolescence. The adolescent psychosocial development is the process through which the dependent child becomes a self reliant adult. A large number of adolescents suffer from psychosocial problems and many of these problems are of transient in nature and are often not even noticed. The objective of the study was to find out the prevalence of psychosocial problems among adolescents.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in ward no 58 of Tangra area of Kolkata. The study group comprised of 420 adolescents, selected by multistage stratified random sampling. Data was collected on a pre-designed and pre-tested questionnaire by interviewing the adolescents and was subsequently analyzed by using suitable statistical package.Results: Anxiety was maximum (34.76%) in adolescent boys whereas conduct disorder was found to be maximum (28.57%) in adolescent girls. Majority (35.62%) of late adolescent boys were attributed to substance abuse. Anxiety was found to be the commonest problem among adolescent males in all religions. Educational difficulties were maximum among Muslim adolescents. The problems per subject (with psycho-social problems) were more in adolescent boys (4.4) and girls (3.8) having joint family. None of the class I adolescent girls claimed to have any educational difficulties.Conclusions: A holistic approach to underlying causes of psycho-social problems of adolescents should be undertaken. There is need of strengthening the existing “package” of services for adolescents in various initiatives and programmes.

Psychosocial problems among school going adolescents in Ghorai sub metropolitan city of Dang

“…al in Kathmandu. 15 However, this study yielded that there is significant association of father's and mother's occupational status of respondents with psychosocial problems. Contradictory finding was revealed by a study done by Timalsina et.…”

“…Contradictory finding was revealed by study done by Timalsina et. al 15 in Kathmandu and Bista et. al 3 in Hetauda.…”

“…al in Kathmandu which showed no association as per occupational status of respondent's father and mother. 15 The role of academic grade on psychosocial problems was also…”

“…According to Sharma 15 There were three sections of the research tool where first two sections were self-constructed questionnaire (Part I comprised socio-demographic information and part II comprised school related information) and part III was adopted from standard tool of "Pediatric Symptoms Checklist-Youth Report". The checklist was of three-point Likert scale with "never", "sometime" and "often" options.…”

“…6 Various Studies conducted in different parts of the world shows that prevalence of psychosocial problems among adolescents' ranges from 12% to 45%. 3,4,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] There are very limited studies conducted in similar settings on psychosocial problems in Dang and detecting these in the early adolescence can be fruitful for the quality of life of the individual. 7 Thus, the main aim of this study was to assess the magnitude of psychosocial problems among school going adolescents.…”