Stress, Somatic Complaints and Anxiety : A Comparative Study of The Adolescents of Jammu and Kashmir Regions.

Armed conflict, political uncertainty and unavoidable circumstances prevalent in the state of Jammu and Kashmir since last two decades has a lasting and profound implication on the emotional, psychological, behavioural and other aspect of personality on the people of these regions. It needs a specific mention that the adolescents experiencing ' storm and stress ' seemingly to be the most consistently affected and are at extreme risk of psychological trauma during armed conflict. Keeping these ideas in mind the present study was designed to examine the level of stress, somatic dysfunction and anxiety among the adolescents of Jammu and Kashmir. Data was collected from 200 adolescents studying in different higher secondary schools of two regions; Kashmir valley ( considered to be high conflict region) and Jammu (considered to be relatively low conflict region). General Health questionnaire - 28(GHQ-28) developed by Goldberg (1978) and Stress measuring scale developed by Chashu & Khan (2009) was used to gather the response from adolescents. GHQ28 questionnaire has four subscales: Somatic complaints(1-7), Anxiety -Insomnia(8-14), Social dysfunction(15-21), Major depression(22-28). For the purpose of this study only 2 dimensions, Somatic complaints(1-7), Anxiety -Insomnia(8-14) were taken in to consideration. Data was analysed by applying t-test as it fulfils the purpose of the study. The trend of the result showed that adolescents belonging to Kashmir region have higher level of stress and somatic symptoms, and lower level of anxiety as compared to adolescents belonging to Jammu region. Further comparing male and female adolescents of Kashmir region it was found that female adolescents scored high on all the above mentioned three variables than the males. While in case of adolescents belonging to Jammu region it was found that both male and female have almost same scores on somatic complaint and anxiety but females outscore males on the scores of stress. Showing that female adolescents of Jammu region are more stressful than male counterparts.