title: Does education plays a role in meeting the human rights needs of Indian women with mental illness?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Globally women are one of the vulnerable populations and women without education and with mental illness are doubly disadvantaged.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To find out the role of education in meeting the human rights needs of women with mental illness at family and community levels.
  
  
  METHODS
  A descriptive design was carried out among randomly selected recovered women (N = 100) with mental illness at a tertiary care center. Data was collected through face-to-face interview using a structured questionnaire.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our findings revealed that human rights needs in physical needs dimension, i.e. access to safe drinking water (χ(2) = 7.447, P < 0.059) and serving in the same utensils (χ(2) = 10.866, P < 0.012), were rated higher in women with illiteracy. The human rights needs in emotional dimension, i.e. afraid of family members (χ(2) = 13.266, P < 0.004), not involved in making decisions regarding family matters (χ(2) = 21.133, P < 0.00) and called with filthy nicknames (χ(2) = 8.334, P < 0.040), were rated higher in literate women. The human rights needs in religious needs dimension, i.e. allowed to go to temple, church, mosque etc. (χ(2) = 9.459, P < 0.024), were not satisfied by the illiterate women. Similarly, literate women felt that they were discriminated by community members due to their illness (χ(2) = 9.823, P < 0.044).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The findings of the present study suggested that women without education were more deprived of human rights needs than literate women. Thus, there is an urgent need to improve literacy of women and to strengthen the legal framework to protect the rights of the women with mental illness.
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, (Institute of National Importance), Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Vijayalakshmi
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Poreddi
authors.affiliation: Department of Nursing, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, (Institute of National Importance), Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
authors.lastname: Ramachandra
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, (Institute of National Importance), Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
authors.forename: Suresh Bada
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Math
keywords: Human rights; illiteracy; literacy; mental illness; needs assessment; women