A Study to Evaluate Nature and Extent of Psychiatric Morbidity in Business Processing and Outsourcing Employees in Delhi and National Capital Region

BACKGROUND Stress is commonly seen in BPO employees. A number of factors contribute to stress in BPO employee like long working hours, pressure of work, work time, insufficient holidays, travel time, repetitive nature of work etc. India is one of favourable site for BPO industry because of twelve hour time difference between India and most of USA cities. The study was done to find out nature and extent of psychiatric morbidity in BPO employees in Delhi and NCR. METHODS The study was done in two phases. In phase 1 GHQ12 (General Health Questionnaire) was applied to 300 BPO employees who were selected randomly. Those BPO employees who scored 12 or more on GHQ12 were assessed with Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Data was collected on Microsoft excel and chi square test was used to assess association between variables. RESULTS The data was collected and assessed using appropriate statistical methods. The study revealed out of 300 participants 219 were males and 81 were females. Most participants were of less than 30 age. Out of 300 participants 81 scored 12 or more on GHQ12 scale. In phase 2, out of 81 participants 58.2 % males and 80 % females scored 9 or more on BDI, while there was no significant difference on BAI scores. The perceived stress was more in females compared to males. CONCLUSIONS The study revealed that stress is very common in BPO employees. Those who are married, stay with joint family had lesser perceived stress compared to single or those in nuclear families. Females are more prone to develop stress compared to males. The risk of depression too was more in females (80%) compared to males. Anxiety symptoms were more in those staying in nuclear families as compared to those staying in joint families. KEYWORDS BPO, Psychiatric Morbidity, Call Centre Employees