Mental Health and Family Characteristics of School –going Tribal Students in Tripura: An Empirical Study

The concept of mental health is as old as human beings. In ancient scriptures there are full of references to mental diseases and their treatments. The Atharbaveda, the Charak, the Samihita, the Susurt and Astangh Sangrah have described several diseases of the mind with specific methods of treatment. They have also given the concept of mental health and how to maintain and promote. The term mental health is not a precise term, but an intuitively apprehended idea. The mental health of an individual depends on foundations of some basic factors, such as: a) hereditary factors, b) physical factors, c) Social factors (home, school, neighborhood and the community and d) the satisfaction of basic needs. In the above context, the objectives of the study were: to find out whether there is any significant differences between the school-going tribal boys and the tribal girls in mental health: to find out whether there is significant differences between the school-going urban tribal students and the rural tribal students in mental health; and to find out whether students having high mental health possess more qualities of good citizenship than the students possessing low mental health. The data was calculated through a developed and standardized Questionnaire. We have collected data from 600 school-going tribal students of Class IX of sixteen secondary schools selected randomly from the Municipality/ Nagar Panchayet and ADC areas situated in the four districts of Tripura. The result have been calculated using statistical measures like Mean, Median, Quartile Deviation, Standard Deviation, Variance, Skewness, Kurtosis, Ogive, T-test and F-test. The findings revealed that the mentally unhealthy group of school-going tribal students had higher family tension than the healthy group. Mental health of boys and girls appeared to be considerably influenced by the two factors: intelligence and physical health.