Bikash Chandra Das¹, Md Abeed Hasan¹, Eshita Farha Tonni¹ and Golam Mohammad²*

¹Faculty of Public Health, North South University, Bangladesh
²Professor, Department of Pharmacy, Gono Bishwabidyalaya, Bangladesh

*Corresponding Author: Golam Mohammad, Professor, Department of Pharmacy, Gono Bishwabidyalaya, Bangladesh.

Received: January 04, 2022; Published: June 02, 2022

Abstract

An emerging public health issue is mental disorders. Natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, cyclones, droughts and earthquakes place tremendous psychological and social burden on the communities affected. The negative effects of flooding on human health are complex and substantial, including drowning, accidents and an increased prevalence of common mental illnesses. It can pose tremendous social and welfare challenges that can persist for long periods of time due not only to flooding (the primary stressor), but also to the ongoing secondary stressors that occur as people struggle to restore their lives, properties and relationships.

The purpose of this study is to assess the mental health impacts of flooding and to explore the key determinants of flood-related mental illness in the flood affected region of Bangladesh. In this research, data is obtained from all four upazillas, in the Madaripur district of Bangladesh. A total of 384 people surveyed after the flood events in three Upazillas in the month of September to November 2020. This study examines the relationship between flooding and developing of mental health symptoms.

Chi square test and fisher’s exact test with cross tabulation were used to identify the extent of mental health symptoms on bsrs-5 scale against each variable to find out the extent of mental health symptoms among the blood victims.

We found 17% to 40% of anxiety which range from mild to extreme among the participants. We found 18% to 44% of mild to extreme level of depression in our study. Among male 31.03% were developed severe mental health symptoms which is significantly higher than female where only 20.49% of female were developed severe mental health symptoms. Among the age group from 20 years to above 60 years 45.05% of the participants aged 41 to 50 years developed severe mental health symptoms. Study participants who were with living more people together, having more children, less number of people as income source, less level of education, source of income along with monthly income have significantly increased the prevalence of mental health symptoms which is consistent with the literature review.

The findings of this study will help policy makers to improve early intervention and screening programs and will also have significant public health implications in the control and prevention of flood related mental illness in Bangladesh.

Keywords: Mental Health Symptoms; BSRS-5; Flood

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Citation

Citation: Golam Mohammad., et al. “Mental Health Symptoms Among Flood Victims in Madaripur District in Bangladesh: A Cross-sectional Study”.Acta Scientific Medical Sciences 6.7 (2022): 37-54.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2022 Golam Mohammad., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.