Psychological reactions to leprosy.

The study was conducted to find out the psychological reactions to leprosy, to correlate psychological symptomatology with duration of leprosy and to find out suicidal attempts among leprosy patients. 24 patients were randomly selected from "Kashi Kusth Swasth Shala and Punarvas Mandir". They were administered the Hindi adaptation of Middlesex Hospital Questionnaire. 14 patients verbalised suicidal ideas and 2 have had suicidal attempts. Psychological symptomatology was less reported by those whose duration of illness was longer and more symptoms were reported by those whose illness was of shorter duration. The various findings are discussed in length.