Research Article
Vishal Jindal
Abstract
Objective: 1. To study the Socio-demographic analysis with regard to mentoring, 2. To study the impact of mentoring on Psychosocial and health condition of today’s youth, 3. Ideal mentoring. Setting: Government Medical College and Hospital, Chandigarh, India. Study design: Community-based cross-sectional study. Participants: “Unmarried” individuals attending various professional courses in and around Chandigarh who were willing to participate in the study and capable of giving answers themselves. Sample size: 271 study subjects selected by stratified multi-stage random sampling. Study variables: Age, educational status, religion, caste, occupation, perceptions attitude towards mentoring, perceived psycho social benefits of mentoring etc. Statistical analysis: Normal test of proportion, Chi square test, Student’s t test, Mann Whitney ‘U’ test. Also, a risk analysis was done by bi-variate analysis and variant multi logistic regression analysis. An odds ratio along with 95% confidence interval was calculated. Result: Shows mentor‘s corresponding to different category showing highest percentage of mentor for OBC (66.7%) followed by ST (55.6%) and SC (50%). The mentor’s were found least in the general category (37.1%). The highest percentages of respondents having a mentor were found in one having labored as their father 80%. Maximum respondents having a mentor were found in low (45.7%) and middle (44.8%) socioeconomic status. Individuals without a mentor fight more often on a daily and monthly basis. The mentor had a positive health wise influence on their protégé was witnessed as 56.6% people who had a mentor were engaged in daily physical activity. Contradictory to the common notion respondents with mentor were less aware about the availability of contraceptives, measures to detect pregnancy, consequences of teenage pregnancy, knowledge of emergency contraceptives. Mentor had positive influence on improving the lifestyle on all aspects of their protégé. Individuals with a mentor smoke less, drink less, do less drug use, chew less, have gambled less, have done less of fighting. One quality which most individuals were looking for in their mentor is friendly behavior and helping nature. Conclusion: Mentor concept is still prevalent according to the traditional Indian concept with more educated and high socio-economic class still refraining from this concept. Mentoring had a positive influence on the health condition of individuals in terms of exercise and body mass index. It also improved the general lifestyle of adolescents and decreased their substance abuse rate. So mentoring is an important tool in improving the conditions of adults in all aspects.