The prevalence of major depression in a rural flood affected area of Pakistan

Aim: to find out the prevalence of major depression in rural flood affected are of pakistan study design: cross-sectional survey duration of study: september 5th till september 8th 2010 methods: this study comprises of 52 subjects from medical camps of mohsin wala and umer sheikh near kot addu,dist. muzaffargarh,punjab. sampling technique was non-probability,convenience sampling. the interviews were conducted in complete privacy. the data was collected and compiled in the computer and analyzed using spss version 17. results: results were analyzed by comparing the percentages of patients diagnosed with depression and those who were not. results were stratified on the basis of gender which showed that males were more affected than females. (p-value 0.030). data of diagnosed cases was divided into two groups on gender basis and then stratified according to age. the population pyramid showed that significant number of both males and females diagnosed with depression were below 40 years of age. conclusion: psychiatric services should be incorporated with rest of the health services in order to provide relief to victims of disaster.