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Early marriage is linked to poor mental health in young girls and adolescents, according to a\u00a0Murdoch Children\u2019s Research Institute, Centre for Adolescent Health led study.<\/p>\n
Dr Shilpa Aggarwal and Professor George Patton<\/a>, along with\u00a0Ms Kate Francis<\/a>\u00a0and Dr Ghazaleh Dashti, analysed data from the\u00a0Understanding the Lives of Adolescents and Young Adults (UDAYA) cohort study<\/a>\u00a0which was conducted in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India. They investigated the connection between mental health and early marriage \u2013 a prevalent unfair gender norm in the region.<\/p>\n Their results, published in\u00a0The Lancet Regional Health \u2013 Southeast Asia<\/a>, point to the need to prioritise mental health when establishing programs and policies to reduce child marriage rates. This will help give vulnerable girls better opportunities and positively impact the lives of many young adolescents.<\/p>\n The team analysed structured interviews with young girls three years apart, initially in 2015-2016 and again in 2018-2019. They found that girls who were unmarried during the first interview, but showed symptoms of depression, were more likely to be married by the second interview compared to girls without depressive symptoms.<\/p>\n By the second interview, newly married girls were more likely to have depressive symptoms than their unmarried peers and this was even higher in those who had experienced some form of domestic abuse.<\/p>\n Dr Aggarwal said, \u201cChild marriage for girls has existed in Indian and similar low and middle-income societies for a long time and the problem has been difficult to curb.\u201d<\/p>\n One-third of girls in South Asia are married before they turn 18 and 8 per cent of girls get married before the age of 15. This risks educational opportunities and contact with families and friends during this vital growth period.<\/p>\n The research study looked at changes in marital status and mental health of 7,864 adolescent girls, between the ages of 10 to 19 years, from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. In the period between waves one and two, the team found that 23 per cent (1,825) of participants got married.<\/p>\n Professor Patton said, \u201cWe found that the mental health of child brides was poor even before marriage and became worse after they were married, particularly in the context of harsh and abusive relationships.<\/p>\n \u201cThe adverse effects on children\u2019s mental health are one of the reasons to redouble efforts to delay marriage in countries like India, where child marriage remains common.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Aggarwal said focusing on the mental health of young brides in the community and improving maternal health services would better support adolescent girls.<\/p>\n \u201cWe aim to establish the importance of integrating mental health as a target in programs addressing child marriage in the region,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the same time, there is a need to address the higher risk of mental health problems in girls who get married early.\u201d<\/p>\n The research team from Murdoch\u2019s Children Research Institute hopes these findings lead to mental health being prioritised when creating policies aimed at reducing early marriage.<\/p>\n Read the\u00a0original research<\/a>\u00a0to find out more.<\/p>\n Publication:\u00a0<\/strong>Shilpa Aggarwal, Kate L Francis, S. Ghazaleh Dashti, George Patton, Child marriage and the mental health of adolescent girls: \u2018A longitudinal cohort study from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India.\u2019\u00a0The Lancet Regional Health \u2013 Southeast Asia<\/em>. DOI:\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.lansea.2022.100102<\/a><\/p>\n This article is republished from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute<\/a>. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Early marriage linked to poor mental health in young girls and adolescents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":4213,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5270],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4202"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4206,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4202\/revisions\/4206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/cah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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