Who Called Mental Health Helpline The Most? Find Out What Ministry’s Report Revealed

New Delhi: In a somewhat startling revelation, 70 per cent of the callers to Kiran, a mental health rehabilitation helpline launched, in September 2020 by the Social Justice and Empowerment (SJE) Ministry, were men. About 32% of those who reached out were students, The Hindu reported.

The Kiran helpline (1800-599-0019) of the Department of Empowerment of Persons With Disabilities (DEPwD) of the Ministry was launched on September 7 by SJE Minister Thaawarchand Gehlot. From September 16, 2020 to January 15, the helpline received 13,550 new calls, of which 70.5% were from men and 29.5% from women, the report said, The Hindu reported.

Fact file

• A total of 1,618 follow-up calls were fielded by mental health professionals of the helpline.
• The majority of callers (75.5 per cent) were in the age group of 15 to 40 years, while 18.1 per cent were older, in the 41 to 60 age group.
• 65.9 per cent had “milder nature of distress”, while 26.5% were “moderately distressed” and 7.6 per cent were “severely distressed”.
• 32.3 per cent of the callers were students, 15.2 per cent were self-employed, 27.1 per cent were employed, 23.3 per cent were unemployed, 1.4 per cent were home-makers and 0.7 per cent did not reveal the information.
• While most of the callers (78.2 per cent) sought help for themselves, others reached out for their parents, siblings, spouse and others.
• Majorly the challenges faced by the callers were related to anxiety (28.5 per cent) and depression (25.5 per cent); pandemic-related challenges (7.8 per cent), suicidal tendency (2.8 per cent), substance abuse (3.4 per cent) and others miscellaneous (32 per cent).
• Most of the calls were from the North zone (40.32 per cent), followed by West (27.08 per cent), South (16.99 per cent), East (11.28 per cent) and North East (4.33 per cent).
• The number of calls to the helpline had increased to 15,170 till January 31, while there had been 1,978 follow-up cases.

Speaking to The Hinduon condition of anonymity, a clinical psychologist of the DEPwD working on the helpline said most of the calls had been from “young adults”. Students were facing anxiety and depression due to the uncertainty about their future and lack of interaction with peers during the COVID-19 pandemic, the psychologist said.

Another psychologist working at the regional centre of the DEPwD fielding calls from Haryana, told The Hindu that students were the largest group of callers. The psychologist added that women from rural areas had reached out to the helpline with complaints of anxiety and disturbances within families.