Daijiworld Media Network – Bengaluru
Bengaluru, Mar 31: In a significant shift in approach, the National Mental Health Survey (NMHS) 2025-26 will, for the first time in India, focus on mental wellbeing rather than limiting itself to mental illness.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has tasked the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) with conducting the survey to estimate the burden of mental health problems, understand healthcare-seeking patterns, and assess the status of human resources and services.
Dr Girish N Rao, professor of epidemiology at the Centre for Public Health, NIMHANS, said, “We are looking at mental well-being as an index for the first time. Because a lot of us talk about illness as a model. This time, the survey involves questions around mental wellness and how people look after themselves. It is a challenge to find out the mental wellbeing, but we thought we should give it a try to find out how people report their wellness. This will create a well-being index for the entire country. Our new parameters also include looking at loneliness among the elderly. We are also looking at mental health crisis women go through during pre-menstrual and post-menopause problems.”
Unlike NMHS-1 conducted in 2015-16, which covered only 12 states, the new survey spans all 28 states and 8 Union Territories. So far, more than 2,50,000 interviews have been completed across 24 states.
“All these 24 states including Karnataka have completed their field-level data collection and are planning for thematic studies. The field-level data collection has been done by approaching people door to door capturing the minimum needed information. Thematic study is more of an in-depth or qualitative study which involves studying, analysing, and reporting recurring patterns. Training is rigorous and intense, lasting over a period of six weeks for the field data collectors and State Survey Coordinators,” said Dr Rao, who is leading the survey team to evaluate mental health across India.
He added, “The overall sampling design is a stratified, cluster sampling technique proportional to population size and adopts a four-stage sampling. The districts within each State/UT have been divided into five strata based on the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MDPI) of Niti Aayog; within each stratum, five to 10 districts have been randomly selected.”
The government has mandated that AIIMS-like institutions and government medical colleges serve as implementation partners in each state. Each State and Union Territory will have two Principal Investigators from the departments of Psychiatry and Community Medicine.
NMHS-2 aims to estimate the prevalence of Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome (NMS) disorders among adults and adolescents, and on a pilot basis, children. It will also assess disability, socio-economic impact, pathways to care, service utilisation, caregiver burden, and mental health systems, while identifying vulnerable populations and available resources.
A draft report will be submitted to the National Technical Advisory Group by July 2026, while the final report will be released on October 10, 2026, marking World Mental Health Day.