PREVALENCE AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS OF MENTAL DISTRESS AMONG LEPROSY PATIENTS AT ALERT HOSPITAL OUT PATIENT CLINIC ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA, 2011

Background: Leprosy is one of the infectious diseases of public health importance; it is the leading cause of permanent physical disability as aresult of nerve damage. Individuals with leprosy have emotional stress and anxiety, which may lead to both psychological and psychiatric co-morbidity.

Objective: This study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of mental distress among leprosy patients attending ALERT Specialized, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Method: Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted from April 2011-June 2011. Alternate patients from the daily register of outpatients were interviewed for symptoms of mental distress using the Self Reporting Questionnaire (SRQ-20). This questionnaire was administered by two trained nurses. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 15. Odds ratio were calculated to see the association of dependent variable with each independent variable. P-value <0.05 were considered as statistically significant.

Result: The prevalence of mental distress was found to be 30.9%.Physical disability was also associated with mental distress. This study showed that mental distress was significantly higher in patients with leprosy.

Conclusion: This piece of study identifies non-specific mental distress. More over the study indicates a need for integration ofpsychosocial care into current medical treatment. Based on this, future work should be directed at further characterizing the nature and severity of mental disorder in leprosy patients.