Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Oct;35(4):332-4.
doi: 10.4103/0253-7176.122220.

Mental health care of older people: can the district mental health program of India make a difference?

Harish M Tharayil  1 , Anish Thomas  2 , Bindu V Balan  3 , K S Shaji  4
Affiliations

Mental health care of older people: can the district mental health program of India make a difference?

Harish M Tharayil et al. Indian J Psychol Med. 2013 Oct.

Abstract

Background: District mental health program (DMHP) is the flagship program of Government of India to deliver mental health-care throughout the country. Being an out-reach program, it is likely that elderly people with mental health programs are accessing it more frequently. If this is the case, there is potential for including additional components in this program so that something more than the generic service is offered to them.

Aim: This study aims to find out whether the elderly are accessing the DMHP services frequently.

Materials and methods: We compared the proportion of elderly people attending two mental health-care facilities: - A Government Medical College Out-patient Department and the clinics run by the DMHP of the same department.

Results: A significantly higher number of elderly people are attending the clinics of the DMHP compared to the outpatient service of a teaching hospital.

Conclusion and implication: It is concluded that DMHP can be further strengthened by adding additional components like service for the elderly. This is important in view of the increasing number of older people who may need these services in future.

Keywords: Aged with mental disorders; community based care; delivery of health care; mental health program.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: None.

References

    1. Patel V, Prince M. Ageing and mental health in a developing country: Who cares? Qualitative studies from Goa, India. Psychol Med. 2001;31:29–38. - PubMed
    1. Sathyanarayana Rao TS, Shaji KS. Demographic aging: Implications for mental health. Indian J Psychiatry. 2007;49:78–80. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shaji KS, Kishore NR, Lal KP, Pinto C, Trivedi JK. Better mental health care for older people in India. Indian J Psychiatry. 2004;46:367–72. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shaji KS. Dementia care in developing countries: The road ahead. Indian J Psychiatry. 2009;51:S5–7. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Shaji KS, Arun Kishore NR, Lal KP, Prince M. Revealing a hidden problem. An evaluation of a community dementia case-finding program from the Indian 10/66 dementia research network. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2002;17:222–5. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources