Stigma and Mental Health among Young Adults: A Systematic Review

Abstract

This review paper aims to study the stigma around mental health among young people between the ages of 15 and 29. In India, 7.3% of its 365 million young people report mental health disorders and 20% on a global perspective (Gaiha, et al, 2020; NMH Survey, 2016). Though data is scant, some studies have found that youngsters deal with a social environment where mental health is stigmatized (Hermann, et al., 2022). Furthermore, lack of information about mental illnesses and poor accessibility to adequate mental health services hinders the Mental Health care delivery system (Patel; Saxena, 2014; Rebello et al., 2014; WHO, 2022). This paper thoroughly reviewed indexed articles published in the English language on Google Scholar, PubMed, and Semantic Scholar using Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms including – “stigma,” “mental health programs,” “India,” “mental health prevalence,” “mental health delivery system,” and “mental disorders” along with Boolean terms like “and.” This paper recommends that stigmatization of Mental Health be examined as part of psycho-education at the secondary and higher education levels and that students be sensitized about common mental disorders. Training and sensitization of Health Care Professionals, Teachers, Social workers, and other stakeholders must be initiated and monitored by expert institutions. These measures can help young people reconstruct their views on mental health, eventually promoting improvement in mental health care delivery and access to mental health services.