MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS IN KASHMIR AND ITS COVERAGE IN LOCAL MEDIA

Mental distress is an alarming health issue that is touching at the root of veryexistence in the contemporary society. Kashmir is no exception.The prolonged conflict prevalent in Kashmir has taken heavy toll on human lives and disrupted psycho-social and economic fabric of the society. In this socio-economic and political context, people have become victims of mental trauma, stress, anxiety, depression and many other mental health disorders. According to 2015 report of MSF on mental distress, the proportion of adult population suffering from symptoms of depression was 41% representing 1.6 million adults. The rate of mental distress is higher among women than men. Further, “on average, an adult living in the Kashmir valley has witnessed 7.7 traumatic events during their lifetime”. In order to influence public opinion on such health issues, newspapers play a key role through intentional advocacy.-editorials, columns, and interpretive articles. In this backdrop, this research, has attempted to study the extent and nature of news coverage given to issues like mental health problems in local broadsheet leading newspaper of Kashmir, ‘Greater Kashmir'. For the purpose of analysis the study has been divided in to two parts. Part-one involves the quantitative approach (content analysis of newspaper) and the second part includes the case study (qualitative approach) of radio programmes on mental distress. The study also includes the secondary analysis of the research done by experts.