BENGALURU: For the first time in India, the National Mental Health Survey (NMHS) 2025-26 will examine mental wellness or wellbeing as a model rather than mental illness.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has mandated NIMHANS to conduct the survey to estimate the burden of mental health problems, understand healthcare-seeking patterns, and identify the status of human resources and services.
Dr Girish, Prof of Epidemiology, 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 do 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, where only 12 states participated, this survey covers 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 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 indepth study or qualitative study which involves studying, analysing, and report 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.
"The overall sampling design is a stratified, cluster sampling technique proportional to population size and adopt a four stage sampling. The districts within each State / UT has been divided into 5 strata based on Multi-dimensional Poverty Index (MDPI) of Niti Aayog; within each strata 5 to 10 districts has been randomly selected," he added.
The government has mandated that AIIMS-like institutions and government medical colleges act as implementation partners in each state. Each State and Union Territory has 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, 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. The final report will be released on October 10, 2026, on World Mental Health Day.