A Study on Status of Mental Health among Male and Female Senior Secondary Level Students of Uttarakhand State

Abstract

Mental health of the student has been a big concern for parents in the academic world in recent times. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic made huge contributions in it by forcing the school to adopt online teaching and subsequently confining the young generation to their homes and endless hours of screen time. Although online teaching has made academic activities possible at least during this pandemic situation, it has also caused significant stress on the mental health of school children. The present study has been conducted to find out the status of mental health among male and female senior secondary level students of Uttarakhand state. Total of four hundred (400) Senior secondary level Male and female students studying in different schools and Boards of Uttarakhand State were selected as subjects by using random sampling method. The subjects were Aged between 14-19 years and were studying in 9th-12th classes at different schools in Uttarakhand state. Mental Health Status was assessed using the Mental Health Scale developed by Dr. Shushma Talesara and Dr. Akhtar Banao [2017]. The collected data were analysed using mean, standard deviation, and independent t-test. The level of significance was fixed at 0.05. The result revealed that there was a significant difference in the total mental health status between male and female students. Female students were better on mental health status than male students. In subcategories of mental health status, there was a significant difference found for home-related causes, whereas, in the other two subcategories, there was no significant difference between male and female students of Uttarakhand state.