Levels of psychological distress among working and non-working women

Abstract

Psychological distress is defined as a state of emotional suffering characterized by symptoms of depression and anxiety; these symptoms are tied with somatic symptoms that are likely to vary across cultures. Distress is one of the variables which is less explored. Distress can have underlying vulnerability towards psychological morbidity. Factors of distress (person centered & environment centered) affects an individual in his day-to-day life; of which the environmental factor of distress (work status) is affecting the working population nowadays and women are very vulnerable towards it. This study tried to identify the level of psychological distress and the vulnerability of women towards mental disorder, according to their work status (working and non-working). The purpose of this study is to determine the difference in the Levels of Psychological Distress among unmarried working and non-working women. A total number of 144 participants of unmarried women, (working = 80, non-working = 64) ranging between the age of 23-30 years from Kolkata and Bangalore. The data was collected by administering Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), by Kessler et. al. (2002). Independent sample t-test is used to determine the difference in psychological distress between the two groups. The results indicated that there is no significant difference in the level of psychological distress between working and non-working women. Present finding adds to the literature as the lack of published data ascertaining the relationship between the two variables, psychological distress and work status. From this study it is found that work status does not contribute to the level of psychological distress. There can be other personal or social factors which might contribute more to the level of psychological distress among working and non-working women.