Effectiveness of Homoeopathic Medicine for Coping emotional stress in orphan children with age group of 5 to 15 years: A prospective, case series

Emotional stress may be defined as response to a negative change in a child’s life but, excessive stress can affect the way a child thinks, act and feels. As per the epidemiology, the orphan-hood condition is very much prevalent in the children deprived of parental support, love and affection. In the orphan house the individual attention is rare as other children are also housed at same place, thus it becomes important to study the emotional status of these children. In this study we would like to see the role of homoeopathic medicines in emotional status. Keywords – Emotional stress, Children s Emotional Management Scale, Homoeopathy. Objective- Primary objectives –To identify the effectiveness of homoeopathic medicines in the problem of emotional stress in the orphan children using scale. Secondary objectives –To assess the problems of emotional stress in children aged 5 to 15 years in the orphanage using the scale. Study Design – Prospective Case series. Materials and Method – 15 children from the Adharashram with emotional stress were recruited and followed up for minimum period of 6 months. Children’s Emotional Management Scale (CEMS) was used for the assessment of emotional status of the children. According to the screening criteria 15 students were selected for the study. Trained homoeopathic physician prescribed individualised homoeopathic similimum and again the patient were evaluated for the improvement of emotional status on CEMS. Result –After prescribing homoeopathic medicines in children having emotional stress, we found out that 87% of the cases are improved and 13% of the cases are not improved. N is equal to no. of cases (n=15), whereas d represents differences of pre and post score(d=134), d bar equals to sum of difference divided by no. of cases which came as=8.93, sum of difference(S) is root of pre and post score divided by no. cases minus one which came as 4.55. The SE of difference is dum of difference divided by root of no. of cases which came to be 1.17. Test statistics mean difference divided by SE, which is 7.63. Further our T value is greater than the table value of t (2.15). Hence, we accept the hypothesis that Homoeopathic medicines is effective in coping the emotional stress in orphan children of age group of 5-15 years. Conclusion – According to our study, homoeopathic medicines were effective in coping emotional stress in orphan children. The population under study were screened and it was found that 73% (anger – 20%, sadness- 6.6%, worry- 3%) of the children aged 5-15 years suffer from emotional stress in the orphanage, according to the CEMS scale. Hence, emotional stress is prevalent condition in the studied population.