This study on understanding factors associated with relationship issues among beneficiaries aged 15 to 35 years attending guidance centers (Yuva Spandana Kendras) throughout the state of Karnataka revealed occupation, marital status, having health and lifestyle issues, personality issues, safety issues, gender, sex, & sexuality issues, suicidality, alcohol consumption, and different emotions experienced (feeling anxious, inability to trust anyone, forgetfulness, worthlessness, and suicidal ideations) as significant correlates for having relationship issues. All the factors were associated with increased risk of relationship issues. Forgetfulness and feeling worthless were associated with reduced risk of having relationship issues.
The study results are similar in terms of alcohol consumption and suicidality as risk factors for relationship issues (14, 15). Studies among adolescents and adults have revealed that depression, depression among family members, and anxiety are risk factors for relationship issues (16). Similarly, feeling anxious, which can be considered as a risk factor / precursor for anxiety, and awareness of a member of family ever attempting suicide are shown to be risk factors for relationship issues in this study. Yuva Spandana being a mental health promotion programme, focus is more on data related to potential risk factors (like feeling anxious) for mental health problems rather than diagnosing mental health problems (like generalized anxiety disorder).
Depression is a known risk factor for relationship issues(17). Three questions which are considered as core symptoms to diagnose depression namely feel depressed, not interested in doing activities, feeling tired or helplessness (18) were considered as potential hypothesized exposures. However, these were not associated with risk of having relationship issues in multivariate analysis. This might be due to the bidirectional association of depression and relationship issues which needs further evaluation.
Interestingly, forgetfulness and worthlessness are found to prevent relationship issues in this study. It is hard to explain such an association considering the complexity of relationship issues among the young. Search words like mental health and relationship, mental health problem and relationship, forgetfulness and relationship, forgetfulness and depression, forgetfulness and parental relationship, forgetfulness and suicide, worthlessness and relationship, worthlessness and depression, worthlessness and parental relationship didn’t elicit any relevant literature supporting/ refuting this observation.
Beneficiaries who reported having health and lifestyle issues, gender, sex and sexuality issues, safety and personality issues were significantly at higher risk of reporting relationship issues. Those with safety issues had the highest risk of having relationship issues (AOR = 6.28) followed by health and lifestyle issue (AOR = 3.61), gender, sex and sexuality issues (AOR = 3.10) and personality issues (AOR = 2.88). It is likely that beneficiaries with safety issue tend to avoid interaction with people or they might lack trust among their relationship which might make them report relationship issues. The duration, intensity and type of issues along with utilizing in-depth interviews or other qualitative techniques would throw more light on this complex association. Information on duration of emotional experiences and amount of alcohol consumed would have added more information and understanding of factors affecting relationship issues. However, this study being done on clinic data of beneficiaries receiving services under a health promotion program, this data was not collected during routine guidance sessions.
To our knowledge, this is the first study looking at risk factors for relationship issues utilizing data from a large scale health promotion intervention amongst youth in a state in India. The large sample size of 8595 beneficiaries is strength along with a goodness of fit of 73% and area under curve of 86%. This study reveals about 14 factors affecting relationship issue, which can in turn impact future overall and psychological wellbeing amongst youth in Karnataka. The study is conducted amongst youth attending guidance centers within Karnataka. Study subjects are mostly rural, aged 15–20 years, students and unmarried youth. This is due to the fact that sensitization programs on Yuva Spandana is conducted mostly among students (78.1%) (data not shown). The results of the study can be fairly generalized to this group since three-fourths of the youth in Karnataka are studying in colleges (19). Given the nature of potential exposures considered in this study, large sample size across the state of Karnataka and lack of understanding of relationship issues in this population, the results of this study assume importance. Although the data utilized for the study is similar to clinic data or routine programmatic data. Under Yuva Spandana, data is collected on a standardized real-time digital platform by trained individuals (Yuva Samalochakas). The data is regularly monitored and checked for quality on a weekly basis. In addition, the registration and visit forms were developed based on stakeholder and expert consultation through an iterative process. Thus, the quality of collected data can be considered reliable and valid.
Certain limitations of the study need specific mention. Firstly, the temporality of association between the assessed factors and relationship issues cannot be determined due to the cross-sectional nature of data collected. Longitudinal assessment of these factors will throw more light on the temporality; Follow up data of some of these beneficiaries provide an opportunity for future analyses. Secondly, the beneficiaries attending Yuva Spandana Kendras are mobilized through sensitization programs conducted in the community. There is a possibility of healthy worker effect (20), with youth who find themselves healthy, are likely to attend Yuva Spandana Kendras, rather than those who do not consider themselves healthy. This is unlikely to change the results of the study. In fact, it is likely to strengthen the observed association when such effect is negated. Finally, there is a possibility of social desirability for responses to sensitive questions like self-report of different issues, suicidality and emotional experiences of beneficiaries. This is likely to be equal among both outcome groups. In this scenario of non-differential misclassification, the observed odds ratios are likely to be stronger in nature compared to the ones obtained in the study.