Symptoms of Somatoform Ailments in Indian Rural Women: Does that Raise an Alarm?

Symptoms of Somatoform Ailments in Indian Rural Women: Does that Raise an Alarm?

The awareness of somatic problems is scant in India, in both urban and rural settings. It is the difference in the treatment of sufferers, which actually brings forth the fact that the situation is relatively better in urban areas. The availability and accessibility of modern health facilities in urban areas helps in prognosis. In contrast, in rural areas the fate of such victims ultimately falls in the hands of quacks or ojhas, the so called ‘faith healers’ who are ill-famed for using inhuman healing practices. Such incidents keep happening in rural areas every now and then as reported in newspapers, but the primary reason for this is the absence of any health facility to treat such symptoms at primary or secondary level. In Indian villages, Somatic/psychosomatic illness is often misunderstood as a suffering caused by some supernatural power. Therefore, there is a dire need of making treatment and other facilities available to people with psychosomatic problems in villages, which is currently non-existent in the rural public health system.