ISLAMABAD: A damning report recently conducted by Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF) says that over half of the population of Kashmir was suffering from depression.
The survey says that one out of every two adults was mentally afflicted in the Kashmir valley in some way or other. The research, released last month, was done in collaboration with the Department of Psychology, Kashmir University, and the Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience. The survey reveals that one in every five adults in Kashmir were living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and hundreds of stress disorder cases come to Kashmir hospitals daily.
Nearly 1.8 million adults suffered from mental distress and more than half had experienced or witnessed conflict-related trauma. Doctors cited conflict, implicitly referring to the heavy presence of Indian troops in disputed Kashmir, as the main cause for depression cases. “We have found out multiple factors associated with it – one of them is definitely traumatic life events while economic reasons obviously play a part as well,” said psychiatrist Arshid Hussain.
