Prevalence of Depression among Post-Menopausal Women of Uttarakhand

A Quantitative study was conducted to determine the prevalence of depression among post-menopausal women in selected villages of Dehradun, Uttarakhand. The purpose of the study was to study psychological and physiological links between depression and postmenopausal in women. The survey approach was adopted and 102 Post-menopausal women were selected using Snowball sampling technique. The setting was selected through simple random sampling. The present study adopted Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) scale to assess the depression level among the post-menopausal. Major findings of the study revealed educational level of 61% had no education, and all the women (100%) were house managers. Only a few (15%) subjects had gone for surgical interventions for gynecological disorders. No subject was on hormonal therapy. The study results revealed that 54% of study subjects had major depressive disorder. Participants 55 % had trouble sleeping or waking in the morning every day and 59% responded that they feel tired all the time. A recent study on the risk of post-menopausal depression didn't conclude or determine what exactly was causing the depression in the study group. However, when the body goes through such radical changes as menopause; it wouldn't be surprising to observe acute depression and even major depression due to the imbalance of hormones in the body.