Mental health plays a vital role in developing students' personality and to promote well organized learning. Undoubtedly, the role of home cannot be undermined or shifted to any other agency. All psychologists, teachers, and mental hygienists agree that primarily family living and experiences play the most crucial role in the development of harmonious personality in children, but in recent years, due to rapid industrialization, the family is disintegrating and is not in a position to play its effectively. Moreover in the present circumstances, in our country, most of the parents are illiterate and illinformed who cannot be charged with the responsibility of providing proper guidance for mental health. The other problem is that parents do not have access to the scientific knowledge of human behaviour which can be used effectively to prevent mal-adjustment and care for simple mental disturbances. Mental health concerns are the most serious and prevalent health problems among students in higher education (Mishra & Jha, 2015; Chakrabarty et al., 2016). According to WHO (2018), poor mental health is associated with rapid social change, stressful work conditions, gender discrimination, social exclusion, unhealthy lifestyle, physical ill-health, and human rights violations. All the time more effective psychopharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatments have facilitated matriculation for students with histories of anxiety, mood, personality, eating, and substance abuse disorders. The school takes a great responsibility in the process of harmonious development of personality. Students spent six to seven hours in educational institutions. Educational centers are in a position in the development of children's potentialities by catering to their needs.

Mental health hazards in educational centers: the following factors which adversely affect the mental health of the child (Aggarwal, 2014).

• Lack of friendliness on the part of teachers
• Undue stress on scholastic and other competition
• The defective system of evaluation
• Fear of failure resulting in tension
• Excess of homework
• Heavy curriculum and failure of the child to cope with it and so on.

During adolescence, the brain undergoes a significant growth and development, which continues into the adult age. This means that teenagers are passing through a vulnerable time of neuro development that can have a serious impact on all aspects of their life (Mumthas & Muhsina, 2014; Deka, 2017). Indeed, the period of adolescence is a time when new behaviours begin to emerge, including changes occurring in attention, risktaking behaviour, motivation, and decision making.

There are innumerable factors that affect student's mental health negatively, such as alcoholic parent, intimate peer's violence, economic barriers, severe illness, and lack of support (Travasso, Rajaraman, & Heymann, 2014). Providing students with an environment that demonstrates love, compassion, trust, and understanding will greatly impact a student so that they can build on these stepping stones to have a productive lifestyle. Most of them do not receive that type of lifestyle yet. Some students have to deal with a childhood that is filled with bitterness, hatred, angst, disbelief, and unconstructiveness. An emergence for addressing mental health hazards in an educational setting is critically important, because one among five students are under diagnosable conditions, such as emotional, behavioral, or mental health disorder.

The following are the objectives of the study,

• To study the difference between the male and female undergraduate students towards mental health.
• To study the difference between rural and urban undergraduate students towards mental health.
• To study the difference between the nuclear and joint family students towards mental health.

The following are the research questions of the study,

RQ 1: What are the mental health differences of the undergraduate students in terms of gender?

RQ 2: What are the mental health differences of the undergraduate students in terms of locale of the students?

RQ 3: What are the mental health differences of the undergraduate students in terms of type of family?

4.1 Subjects

The subjects for the study were selected into first-year undergraduates from affiliated colleges of Periyar University, Salem by using random sampling technique. Data from 314 students from six colleges were included in this study. The respondents were selected according to the following socio-demographic characteristics a) gender, b) locale of students, and c) type of family.

4.2 Instrument and Procedure

In this study, the instrument used to elicit and collect information was in the form of a questionnaire. “Mental Health Inventor y ” (MHI-2017) constructed and standardized by the investigator was used in the study to collect quantitative data. It was a 4 item Likert-type rating scale with 40 statements, 17 negatives, and 23 positives. The subjects have to choose any one of the four responses, i.e. always, most of times, some times, and never with scores of 4, 3, 2, and 1, respectively for positive items and the negative items scoring system was reversed. The tool was presented to experts for assessing the content validity of the items. On the basis of the experts' suggestions few items were changed. The reliability of the questionnaire was found by using split half method. The calculated reliability value is 0.89. The language of the questionnaire was English. The questionnaire was administered to the students during class hours by getting permission from the management.

4.3 Data Analysis

The quantitative data were analyzed by using t-test. During data analysis, the positive and negative statements of the mental health inventory were considered, and in the positive items, higher scores represent better mental health. In the negative items, low scores show better mental health.

RQ-1: What are the mental health differences of the undergraduate students in terms of gender?

Gender variable was investigated by t-test and two samples assuming unequal variance analysis showed a significant difference in favor of the male undergraduate students. The results are given in Table1.

Table 1. t-Test: Mental Health of Male and Female Undergraduate Students

RQ-2: What are the mental health differences of the undergraduate students in terms of locale of the students?

In order to answer the research question, the data were analyzed by t-test and two samples assuming unequal variance and significant difference was found according to their locale. The urban students having better mental health is compared with rural students, and the results are given in Table 2.

Table 2. t-Test: Mental Health of Rural and Urban Undergraduate Students

RQ-3: What are the mental health differences of the undergraduate students in terms of type of family?

In order to answer the research question, the data were analyzed by t-test and two samples assuming unequal variance and a significant difference was found according to their type of family. Students come from a joint family having better mental health than the nuclear family students, and the results are given in Table 3.

Table 3. t-Test: Mental Health of Nuclear Family and Joint Family Undergraduate Students

The goal of the present research was to study mental health among the undergraduate students. When the differences between genders were examined, a significant difference was determined between male and female. The male students' mean score (M=13.17) differed to the mean score of the female students (M=12.23). Thus the results suggest that the male show better mental health than female (t=2.61). The findings supported by researchers found that females show more depression as compared to male and also show high levels of anxiety than male (Goebert et al., 2009; Fisher & Hood, 1987; Soet & Sevig, 2006) and also consonance with results of Mahalakshmi and Pugalenthy (2015) and Joseph (2015) found that there exists a significant difference between genders. Results also show that locale has a significant effect on mental health and urban students, which shows better mental health than rural students. The rural students' mean score (M=12.39) differed to the mean score of the urban students (M=13.46). The findings are consistent with Mahalakshmi and Pugalenthy (2015) and Joseph (2015), where they found the difference between rural and urban higher secondary students and also other researchers found that the urban students have slightly differed to the rural students (Kumar & Baliya, 2016). The difference between the types of family was examined, where a significant difference was determined between joint family and nuclear family students. The joint family students' mean score (M=13.61) highly differed to the mean score of the nuclear family (M=9.74). These findings are consistent with the work of Muchhal and Kumar (2016) which found that the joint family teacher trainees have better mental health (M=59) than the nuclear family (M=57.5) teacher trainees. These findings are also in-line with the findings of Mahalakshmi and Pugalenthy (2015), which found that joint family students have good mental health as compared to their counterparts.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the mental health status of undergraduate with respect to gender, locale, and the type of family. Mental health is an individual's problem and also a social problem. Therefore, it should not be left uncared for. An individual who has lost his mental health may also become a psychopath or a sociopath. A psychopath or a sociopath may turn into an antisocial element and may cause problems to himself and others. Therefore it should not be neglected. Efforts must be taken to prevent such indices. Maintaining a good mental health involves proper development in one's physical, psychological, and intellectual. Furthermore, the academic institutions should be planned for yoga, exercise, sports activities, etc., to improve mental health among students.

• Guidance and counseling programme should be incorporated into the curriculum for protecting students' wellbeing.
• Teaching community should create democratic and friendly classroom environment which can make students to ask free from hesitation for their clarifications.
• Based on findings of the study, both male and female students need to have regular stress management training, recreation activities, participation in sports, games, and yogic practices along with their academic activities.