Indicators of Mental Illness in a North Indian Population

Culture plays an important role in cognitive process that mediate the social interaction in the behaviour of individual. Fundamental cognitive process e.g., emotions, self esteem, self concept, self enhancement, attitude, prejudice, memory processes etc. are influenced and shaped by individual's culture. These are the important determinants of mental illnesses. Understanding, interpretations, and acceptability of symptoms of mental illnesses may varies from one culture to other, Present study try to find out how cultural influence affect the recognition and identification of mental illnesses. The sample of present study include 28 patients suffering from various mental disorders 24 relatives of the patients and 64 lay persons from Northern India. The semi structured interview procedure and semi structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. Responses obtained were qualitatively interpreted. Result shows that deviance from set norms of the community was considered as symptoms of mental illnesses without consideration whether the deviance is of due to mental illness or is of physical aspect of the problem. Some unusual phenomenon as sneezia was also considered a sign of mental illness. Behavioural excess in any form e.g., excess eating excess quietness etc was also considered as sign of mental illness in Noth Indian population.