A case–control study of psychological distress in survivors of farmers' suicides in Wardha District in central India

CONTEXT: Lack of literature on psychological aspects of survivors of farmers' suicides is hurdle in devising effective helping strategies for rising number of survivors across the country. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: To assess the psychological distress and its correlates in survivors of farmers' suicides. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: Case-control study design was used in Wardha District of Vidarbha region in the central India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A predesigned and pretested semistructured questionnaire was used to assess sociodemographic variables. Self-Reporting Questionnaire-20 was used to evaluate psychological distress in 98 survivors of farmers' suicides and 98 age, sex, and occupation-matched controls. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Significance of differences between case and control groups were assessed using Chi-square test or Fisher's two-tailed exact test for class variables. For continuous variables, Student's t-test was used P < 0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: Significantly higher proportion of survivors had psychological distress than controls. Female survivors, spouse and parents of suicide victims had a high risk of distress. Psychological distress was commonly expressed by depressive and somatic symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Survivors of farmers' suicides are suffering from significant psychological distress.