Mental health and housing structure : A slum based study

Pages: 734-736
Seema Gupta (Department of Psychology, Gokul Das Hindu Girls College, Moradabad, Uttar Prasesh)

Housing is one of the most needful munities that makes its direct impact on mental health, became one has to live and develop himself/herself only living in home. It is also said that home is the first institution so the importance of home in the formation of mental health cannot be denied. Keeping this view in consideration this study was planned and it was aimed to find out the level of mental health among adolescents living in overcrowded homes as a function of gender and age. Two hundred participants (100 males and 100 females) ranging between 13-18 years served as participants. Personal data schedule was used to collect demographic information and mental health battery was used to ascertain the pattern and level of mental health in participants. Four groups of adolescents formed on the basis of gender and age were compared on the mental health through analysis of variance and it was found insignificant so it can be concluded that household crowding do not lay any significant impact on mental health of adolescents. It is only a matter of motivation, chance and interest. Dimensional analysis revealed that the absence of similar trend. As mental health battery was comprised of six dimensions like emotional stability, overall adjustment, autonomy, security-insecurity, self concept and intelligence and many of them are sheer person-based so it is very obvious that they cannot stand in similar raw. So we can say that household crowding is not so strong variable that may lead the pattern and level of mental health is adolescents.