Outcomes of a brief mental health and resilience pilot intervention for young women in an urban slum in Dehradun, North India: A quasi-experimental study

Type of content
Journal Article
Thesis discipline
Degree name
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Language
eng
Date
2018
Authors
Mathias, Kaaren
Pandey, A.
Armstrong , G.
Diksha , P.
Kermode , M.
Abstract

Background: Mental illness is a leading cause of the disease burden among young people. Poor mental health is linked to childhood adversity such as gender inequality, poverty and low educational attainment. Psycho-social assets in adolescents can moderate these impacts and be strengthened. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a brief mental health and resilience intervention among disadvantaged young women in urban North India. Methods: We used an uncontrolled repeated measures design to evaluate the effectiveness of the 15-module mental health and resilience curriculum among young women residing in a slum in Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Standardised psychometric assessments were done to assess outcomes of the intervention at three time-points: pre-intervention (T1), post-intervention (T2), and 8-months post-intervention (T3), covering domains of self-efficacy, resilience, anxiety, depression and gender attitudes. Results: Young women completing the intervention (n=106) had all left school before 10th class. A statistically significant improvement in all psychometric measures was found at T2. These improvements were sustained at T3 in the areas of anxiety, depression and gender equality attitudes, while the measures of resilience and self-efficacy had declined to baseline. Conclusions: This intervention delivered by community-based peers among highly disadvantaged young women can lead to sustained improvements in anxiety and depression and attitudes to gender equality. While other studies in LMIC have shown increased adolescent resilience through peer-led curriculums, this study demonstrates improvements in mental health and gender attitudes can endure 8-months post-intervention. This low-cost, brief intervention can improve mental health resiliency and self-efficacy among disadvantaged young people. Further research should explore how to bring sustained improvements in resilience.

Description
Citation
Mathias K, Pandey A, Armstrong G, Diksha P, Kermode M (2018). Outcomes of a brief mental health and resilience pilot intervention for young women in an urban slum in Dehradun, North India: A quasi-experimental study. International Journal of Mental Health Systems. 12(1). 47-.
Keywords
anxiety, depression, India, peer-based intervention, poverty, resilience, youth mental health
Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
42 - Health sciences::4203 - Health services and systems::420313 - Mental health services
52 - Psychology::5201 - Applied and developmental psychology::520101 - Child and adolescent development
Rights
© The Author(s) 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creat iveco mmons .org/licen ses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creat iveco mmons .org/ publi cdoma in/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.