A Study of Depression among Caregivers of Individuals with Intellectual Disability – A cross sectional study

xBackground and Objectives: Caregivers of children with intellectually disability experiences high level ofemotional, financial and physical stress. The aim of this study is to assess the risk of depression amongcaregivers of individuals with intellectually disability.Methods: A cross sectional study was done on caregivers of intellectually disabled individuals who hasattended Psychiatry outpatient, Department of Government Medical College. 60 patients diagnosed withID were included by systematic random sampling method. Objective data was collected in a specialproforma. Patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) was used to assess risk of depression among caregivers ofIndividuals with Intellectually Disabled. MS Excel sheet and SPSS were used for data entering and statisticalanalysis.Results: On PHQ-9 scale, 71.7% of caregivers had depression out of which, 26.6% shows minimalsymptoms of depression, 20% had mild depression, while 13.4% had moderately severe depression and 11.6% had major severe depression while 28.3% of caregivers had no depression. Depression was more commonin females (36.6%) than males (35%).Conclusion: The prevalence of depression among caregivers of Individual with intellectually disabled washigher in this study. The risk of depression was higher in female caregivers as compared to male caregivers.