Child Marriage as a Determinant of Depression in Women.

The purpose of the present research was to understand whether child marriage is a determinant of depression in women. In order to measure the level of depression the Siddiqui-Shah Depression Scale (1992) was administered on a sample of 60 married women out of which 30 were married before the age of 18, and the remaining 30 were married after 18 years of age. All these women belonged to the middle socio-economic class of Karachi. The age range of the participants was between 18 to 40 years with a minimum of one year of marriage to a maximum of 20 years. The average age of the participants at the time of marriage was calculated to be 18.8 years and each participant had an average of 2 kids. For statistical analysis of the data the t-test was calculated and the results obtained were found to be non-significant which explained that child marriage is not a determinant of depression in women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]