Effect of Gayatri Mahamantra Chant on Depression, Anxiety, Stress and Mental Health of Women Prisoners: A Randomized Control Trial

The World Prison Brief (2016) estimates that there are 10.35 million prisoners worldwide. Among them, the overall female population ranges from 21.2% to 0.7% (ICPS, 2016). The National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, published the annual report “Prison Statistics India” for the year 2015. It reports that there were 1401 prisons in the nation in 2015, up from 1393 in 2010 (NCRB, 2015). This Indicates an increase in the number of imprisoned. The report also indicated that over the past ten years, the number of prisoners, both male and female, has climbed from 3,44,382 to 4,01,789 (95.7%) and from 13,986 to 17,834 (4.3%). In India, the number of prisoners has increased by 28% for women and 17% for males.

The dependent variables of  research are depression, anxiety, stress and mental health of women prisoners. The research includes 104 participants i.e. 52 participants in experimental group and 52 participants in control group. For data collection and making our results reliable, we chose three scales, which are beneficial in depression, anxiety, and stress. DASS-21 (Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21), Neuroticism Scale, World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF), Trauma Symptom Checklist-40 are the instrument for research