Insights 14: Further Analysis of Mental Health Data from Nepal Demographic and Health Survey 2022
According to the World Health Organization, mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realisetheir abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. Throughout our lives, multiple individual, social and structural determinantsmay combine to protect or undermine our mental health and shift our position on the mental health continuum. To measure these determinants, theNepal Demographic and Health Survey 2022 included a module on mental health. The module comprised of two commonly used tools to screen forsymptoms of anxiety and depression, along with questions on care seeking and treatment. Symptoms of anxiety were assessed using the GeneralizedAnxiety Disorder 7 (GAD-7) scale, and symptoms of depression were assessed using nine items from the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9).
HERD International used this data, as well as comparison of related literature, to prepare these Insights. The concentration curve curve below wascreated using the R software, with wealth index as a ranking variable and mental health as the outcome. The odds ratio was derived using aMultivariable Binary Logistic Regression model for a binary anxiety or depression outcome.