Page 240 - RUICHSS 2023 Proceeding

University of Ruhuna ISSN: 2706-0063
Matara, Sri Lanka

Afghanistan has the highest mean number of people with mental disorders as

a percentage of the total population which is 16.04. Furthermore, Nepal has
the lowest mean urban population as a percentage of the total population which

is 14.70. The highest mean of urban population as a percentage of total

population, which is 33.83 is observed in Pakistan. Considering the SD, it
measures the variability or spread of data from the mean. If the SD shows a

larger value, it indicates more variability. According to the results, SD varies
across the countries and variables, mental disorder is generally low for all the

SAARC countries. The analysed results give valuable insight into the variation

in health sectors across the SAARC countries. The third largest mean of
urbanisation is shown in India and compared to that when considering the

mean of mental disorders in India is at the second highest. Thereby, it can be
concluded that with the highest urban population, the prevalence of mental

disorders is higher in India which represents the second largest mean of mental
disorders. Same as that Maldives depicts the same result when analyzing the

means of urbanisation and mental disorders. Thereby, these insights will be

useful for policymakers and researchers to make informed decisions to
increase the concerns of mental health in developing regions.

Figure 1 shows each country's estimated polynomial regression models. Based
on the results, the R2 value of the polynomial regression model is higher

compared to the estimated simple linear regression model. Thereby, the best
fitting model, which is the polynomial regression model was selected for the

analysis of urbanisation's impact on mental disorders in the SAARC countries.

181