TO COMPARE THE PREVALENCE OF PERSONALITY DISORDERS IN A COMMUNITY FROM RURAL AND URBAN AREAS: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY IN SOUTH KARNATAKA, INDIA

BACKGROUND There is a lack of study on the prevalence of personality disorders from rural areas since the degree of willingness of people from rural areas to use mental health services, self-report of mental illness and availability of these services in these areas is very less. These personality disorders frequently co-occurs with other psychiatric disorders, which can complicate their treatment and worsen their prognosis. AIMS To compare the prevalence of personality disorder among rural and urban community in South Karnataka and to estimate is there any differences in quantities and qualities of personality disorders among two groups. MATERIALS AND METHODS An equal number of 300 subjects from urban and 300 subjects from rural areas aged 18-75 years were screened by using SAPAS to identify the cases and further diagnosis was confirmed by using DSM-V TR2 in a two-phase survey. A Chi-square test is used for statistics. RESULTS The weighted prevalence of overall personality disorder in urban areas was 19.4% and 17.2% in rural areas, but not significant statistically. But statistical significance was found for cluster subgroup, where cluster-C subgroup of personality disorders were found to be highest prevalent among rural areas and cluster-B was found to be highest among urban. CONCLUSIONS Since the rural mental health problems tend to be less visible than urban and can lead to the erroneous conclusion that rural areas have a lesser need for mental health services. Our study has found that there is the almost equal prevalence of personality disorder in rural and urban areas, but differences were in (quality) cluster subgroups of personality disorders. The reasons for these different findings need to be studied further in detail.