Knowledge, attitudes, and uptake of mental health services by secondary school students in Gweru, Zimbabwe (original) (raw)
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Frontiers in Psychology
In dealing with adolescent mental health, teachers and school institutions have a critical role in minimizing the challenges of mental health. However, the success of such a measure is dependent on teachers’ attitudes and perceptions of mental health literacy. Adolescent mental health disorders have become a major global concern with heightened increases and prevalence in secondary schools. In Zimbabwe, a dearth of knowledge exists in understanding the perceptions and attitudes of teachers in maximizing student mental health and positive educational outcomes. The aim of the research was to understand the attitudes and perceptions of teachers toward mental health literacy. Using a qualitative approach to understanding attitudes and perceptions, a case study was carried out at Odzi High School. A total of 12 teachers were purposively sampled for data generation on knowledge, attitudes, perceptions, and strategies that can be used to inform adolescent mental health. Data were collected...
ARC Journal of Public Health and Community Medicine, 2016
Community attitude and perception towards mental illness play a major role in successful treatment and social reintegration of people with mental health problems. The aim of this study was to determine the knowledge, attitude and perception of the community towards mental illness in Dodoma Municipality. A multistage sampling technique was employed to select a sample size of 384 from the study population. A descriptive cross-section study was employed and semi-structured questionnaire were used in this study. The results showed that most of participants 85.9% (n=330) had poor knowledge about mental illness. Fifty one percent (n=196) could not identify any type of illness, 58.9% (n=226) connoted negative attitude towards persons with mentally illness. Moreover 75.8% (n=291) of these had poor perceptions about mental illness. Poor knowledge, perception and negative attitude still prevail despite the fact that there is a National Mental Hospital located in Dodoma Municipality, Tanzania.
World cultural psychiatry research review : official journal of World Association of Cultural Psychiatry, 2014
There has been limited effort to explore young people's perceptions about mental illness in Uganda. For mental health programs targeting young people to succeed, it is important to incorporate their understanding of mental illness, their perceptions about causes of mental illness and their attitudes about mentally ill people. The objective of this study was to explore the mental health of young people in secondary schools in Northern and Central Uganda. This was a qualitative study where 24 focus group discussions (FGDs) were held with young people in secondary schools. Respondents aged 14-24 years were purposively selected from 4 secondary schools in the two regions. During the FGDs, young people's perceptions and understanding of three areas listed below were explored: meaning of mental health/mental illness; causes of mental illness and attitudes toward mental illness. Data management and analysis was done with the help of Atlas.ti, a-qualitative-analysis software. Themat...
THE FOUR-TIERED HEALTH SYSTEM AND HELP-SEEKING BEHAVIOUR OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN MUDZI DISTRICT, ZIMBABWE
Asian Journal of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, 2022
Health service provision proved to be the responsibility of three providers-medical, traditional healers, and the church. The state of mental health in Zimbabwe is dire, with one in four mentally ill. The service provision from the medical side is in a sorry state with only nine mental hospitals with only two having psychiatrists. It was prudent to understand the help-seeking behaviour of young people concerning the various service providers. Young people cannot not seek help. The matter comes as to where they get the assistance. The church has a critical role in improving and maintaining the mental well-being of its young people. The church has instead remained divorced from the mental well-being of young people and concentrated on spirituality alone. Mudzi District proved to have a four-tiered health system instead of three-the social, medical, traditional, and spiritual.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine perceived barriers to utilization of mental health services among adults in Dodoma Municipality, Tanzania. To improve the use of mental health services, identifying related perceived barriers is a key step. Design/methodology/approach – A concurrent mixed method model was used. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews (n¼152) using a structured survey questionnaire. In addition in-depth interviews were conducted (n¼10). The quantitative data were analyzed by using Epi info version 2002. Content analysis was used for analyzing qualitative data. Findings – Themajority of respondents opted to usemodernmental health facilities formental illness treatment. They also used spiritual healing and other forms traditional methods including herbal medicines. The most frequently identified causes ofmental illness were: drug abuse, being cursed and witchcraft, demons or evil spirit possession. The reported significant perceived barriers were stigma, economic, lack of transport, witchcraft, lack of awareness of mental health services, unemployment, and negative believes about professional cure. Originality/value – The option for mental health service utilization is influenced by the existing barriers on community and clients’ perception. There is a need for mental health professionals and policy makers to integrate mental health into primary care. Mutual sharing of knowledge between mental health professionals and tradition healers is warranted. Further research on the attitudes toward mental health professional services and on effectiveness of traditional healers’ services is indicated.
Primary school teacher trainees in Kenya have been identified to have both negative opinions about mental illness and attitudes towards professional psychological help seeking for a mental health problem. This study aims at determining the relationship between opinions about mental illness and attitudes towards professional psychological help seeking for mental illness among college students in Kenya. This study used a self-administered demographic questionnaire, opinions about mental illness and attitudes towards professional psychological help seeking to collect data, among 2777 primary teacher trainees in Kenya. SPSS version 19 was used to analyses data. It was found that there is a positive correlation that was significant at p=0.000 between opinions about mental illness and attitudes towards professional psychological help seeking in this population; this is in line with other studies globally. This study recommended an intervention through psychoeducation of mental illness to improve both opinions about mental illness leading to attitudes towards professional psychological help for a mental illness.
Mental Health Services in Zimbabwe – a case of Zimbabwe National Association of Mental Health
World Federation of Occupational Therapists Bulletin, 2014
With limited resources available for healthcare in Zimbabwe, occupational therapists and mental health personnel work to provide a much needed community oriented mental health service. Community facilities and multidisciplinary mental health teams offered by the Zimbabwe National Association of Mental Health (ZIMNAMH) attempt to address the ongoing needs of the population to deal with deinstitutionalization, congestion of the health institutions and prisons, occupational alienation and deprivation, community integration and empowerment of people with mental health problems. This case study presents a story of a client who successful reintegrated through a community-based halfway house into the rural community in which the ZIMNAMH model takes advantage of the rich family support systems in the rural community. The role of the occupational therapists is elaborated.
International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 2016
Background: Mental health literacy (MHL) is foundational for mental health promotion, prevention, stigma reduction, and care; School supported information pertaining to MHL in sub-Saharan Africa is extremely limited, including in Tanzania. Successful application of a school MHL curriculum resource may be an effective way to increase teacher MHL and therefore help to improve mental health outcomes for students. Methods: Secondary school teachers in Tanzania were trained on the African Guide (AG) a school MHL curriculum resource culturally adapted from a Canadian MHL resource (The Guide) for use in Africa. Teacher training workshops on the classroom application of the AG were used to evaluate its impact on mental health literacy in a sample of Tanzanian Secondary school teachers. Pre-post training assessment of participant knowledge and attitudes was conducted. Help-seeking efficacy for teachers themselves and their interventions for students, friends, family members and peers were determined. Results: Paired t test (n = 37) results demonstrate highly significant improvements in teacher's overall knowledge (p < 0.001; d = 1.14), including mental health knowledge, (p < 0.001; d = 1.14) and curriculum specific knowledge (p < 0.01; d = 0.63). Teachers' stigma against mental illness decreased significantly following the training (p < 0.001; d = 0.61). Independent t tests comparing the paired sample against unpaired sample also demonstrated significant differences between the groups for teacher's overall knowledge (p < 0.001). Teachers also reported high rates (greater than ¾ of the sample) of positive help-seeking efficacy for themselves as well as for their students, friends, family members and peers. As a result of the training, the number of students teachers identified for potential mental health care totaled over 200. Conclusions: These positive results, when taken together with other research, suggest that the use of a classroombased resource (the AG) that integrates MHL into existing school curriculum through training teachers may be an effective and sustainable way to increase the MHL (improved knowledge, decreased stigma and positive help-seeking efficacy) of teachers in Tanzania. As this study replicated the results of a previous intervention in Malawi, consideration could be given to scaling up this intervention in both countries and applying this resource and approach in other countries in East Africa.
Malawi Educators Assessment of Student Mental Health Outcomes
International Journal of School and Cognitive Psychology, 2015
Purpose: This paper presents teacher perceptions of life improvements achieved by students following the application of a school based curriculum mental health literacy resource in Malawi. Methods: Life improvement metrics were generated based on educators' self-reported questionnaires obtained as part of the midterm evaluation of a larger youth Depression intervention project. These metrics include a stigma reduction variable, an improved behaviour at school variable, and a mental health related help-seeking variable. Results: Most teachers (81.3 %) reported a positive change in their students' attitudes toward mental illness following exposure to the mental health literacy curriculum resource. Ninety-six percent of teachers reported improvement in student behaviours at school, and all teachers reported one or more mental health care related help seeking behaviours among students. Research Limitations: The sample size was relatively small and recruited from only two districts in Malawi. This is a pilot field implementation and will need to be expanded with larger numbers into a greater number of school districts in order to improve the robustness of the findings. Originality/value: To our knowledge this is the first study to examine teachers' perspectives on student life improvement metrics related to mental health literacy in sub-Saharan Africa. This method of measuring the impact of school-based interventions on students in African schools may be a useful and culturally meaningful approach to youth mental health assessment.