Socio-economic status and the risk of mental morbidity: A cross sectional study of two socio-economically dissimilar Nigerian communities”

Previous cross-sectional studies,mostly in the western countries,have shown that people in lower socioeconomic groups have an increased prevalence of mental morbidity. more studies are needed in the developing countries to examine this relationship. this study examined the relationship between socio-economic status (ses) andmentalmorbidity intwo socio-economicallydissimilar communities. four hundred residents of uwelu and bdpa (ugbowo) communities in the benin citymetropolis,aged 18years and above who were selected bymultistage sampling technique participated in the cross-sectional study.mental morbidity was assessed bymeans of the 28-itemgeneral health questionnaire (ghq – 28),and ses by selfreportedmonthly income,educational attainment,occupation,and type of housing accommodation. chi-square andmultiple regression analysiswere used to analyze the data. there were statistically significant differences between the two communities on all the indices of ses,uwelu being more socio-economically disadvantaged than bdpa(ugbowo). the prevalence of probablementalmorbidity was higher amongst respondents in uwelu than bdpa respondents (28.5% and 19.5% respectively; (p = 0.03). mental morbidity was significantly associated with lowmonthly income (p=0.003),education (p=0.000),and type of accommodation (p = 0.001). the odds of developing mental morbidity for respondents in uwelu is 1.72 times higher than for those in bdpa(p=0.075). the study found a significantly higher prevalence of mental morbidity among residents of uwelu,the more socioeconomically disadvantaged community. the need for intervention and preventive efforts targeting socioeconomic adversities,as well as preventing persons withmental illness fromdownwardsocialmobilitywasdiscussed. © cms uniben jmbr 2015.