1,720,959 research outputs found
Prevalence of substance use and its associated risk factors amongst secondary school students aged 12 to 17 years in Mzuzu, Malawi
Get PDFBackground The use of alcohol and other drugs (AODs) among adolescents has emerged as an increasing public health concern globally and requires an urgent response in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where AOD use is on the rise. Recent systematic reviews of regional evidence have estimated that approximately 40% of adolescents use alcohol or other drugs. This translates to a burden of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) 2.5 times higher than has been seen in high-income countries. To date, very few studies have investigated the prevalence of AOD use among adolescent school learners in Mzuzu, Malawi. As a result, little is known about the factors that may place these adolescents at increased risk of AOD use. This study therefore endeavours to address these gaps. Methods 421 adolescent school learners aged between 12 and 17 years were recruited in this crosssectional study. Following individual informed assent and parental consent, a self-administered questionnaire was administered to secondary school learners to estimate the prevalence of alcohol and drug use in two public secondary schools within the city of Mzuzu, Malawi. Sociodemographic characteristics of all learners, their household members as well as levels of exposure to victimisation and social support were investigated as factors which may influence alcohol and drug use amongst the sample. Means and proportions were used to describe sociodemographic data as well as the prevalence of lifetime alcohol and drug-use. Unadjusted and adjusted associations between risk factors and lifetime alcohol and drug-use were also explored. Only variables that were significant in unadjusted logistic regression models were included in the final adjusted regression model. The findings are presented in the form of odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results The prevalence of lifetime alcohol-use was 17.1% (n=72) across the sample of secondary school learners. A lower prevalence rate of drug-use was found across the sample, with 7.1% (n=30) of learners reporting any prior use of drugs. In adjusted models, being male, school grade level, attending religious services, sleeping arrangements in the household, household ability to meet subsistence needs, tobacco and alcohol-use by other household members were found to be significantly associated with lifetime alcohol use. In the adjusted models for lifetime drug-use, being male, school grade level, living in a single parent household, sleeping arrangements and alcohol-use and drug-use among household members were found to be significant predictors of drug-use among the sample of learners. Conclusion Results from the study show that alcohol and drug-use are prevalent among adolescent school learners in Mzuzu, Malawi and are associated with several socio-demographic and household factors which place learners at increased risk. This illustrates that AOD use is an issue of concern amongst adolescents in Malawi. There is a need for larger studies to be conducted on AOD use among adolescents in Malawi to generate nationally representative data which would help inform the development and implementation of comprehensive services for the treatment and prevention of alcohol and other drug (AOD) use among adolescent school learners in Malawi
An exploration of recovery among persons with severe mental health conditions in South Africa
Get PDFBackground Severe mental health conditions have long-term impacts on multiple stakeholders, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Historically, public mental health services have focused on symptom reduction, emphasising clinical recovery. However, personal recovery, which considers mental health service users' lived experience, has received little attention. Since contextual factors influence outcomes, understanding and measuring recovery in low-resource settings is crucial. This study sought to explore personal recovery from severe mental health conditions in South Africa, where challenges, including poverty, stigma, and limited mental health resources intersect to shape the recovery process. Aim and objectives The overarching research question underpinning the thesis was: What constitutes and facilitates recovery for persons living with severe mental health conditions in South Africa? I aimed to answer this question and contribute to closing the research gap by pursuing four research objectives: (i) To conduct a scoping review on how personal recovery is conceptualised for persons living with severe mental health conditions in low- and middle-income countries; (ii) To explore and describe service provider perspectives on what recovery is for persons with severe mental health conditions in South Africa; (iii) To explore and describe what recovery is for men with severe mental health conditions and their caregivers in South Africa; and (iv) To evaluate the psychometric properties of the Recovery Assessment Scale among persons with severe mental health conditions in South Africa. Methods This mixed-methods study included both qualitative and quantitative components. Initially, a scoping review was undertaken to explore how recovery from severe mental health conditions is conceptualised and facilitated in low- and middle-income countries. Ten articles were included and thematically analysed. Next, semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with 17 service providers in the Western Cape. This qualitative phase also included interviews with four male mental health service users and three of their caregivers. Visual participatory methods such as photovoice and life graphs were used to collect data. Finally, a quantitative evaluation was conducted to assess the psychometric properties of the Recovery Assessment Scale among 250 South African mental health service users. Results The scoping review revealed that recovery from severe mental health conditions is perceived as a continuous, non-linear process. While high-income countries focus on autonomy and independence, low- and middle-income countries emphasise social ii connectedness and spirituality as key recovery elements. Service providers suggested that clinical recovery models dominate mental health care, but personal recovery requires an approach that addresses social, economic, and cultural inequalities. For mental health service users, long-term relational support was vital to recovery. Even though spirituality was crucial to recovery, stigma from faith-based communities sometimes hindered access to spiritual support. Finally, the psychometric evaluation of the Recovery Assessment Scale showed a five-factor structure, with “Empowerment and Inner Strength” emerging as a new factor. The adapted Recovery Assessment Scale demonstrated strong internal consistency and reliability, proving a suitable tool for measuring recovery in South Africa. Discussion and conclusion The findings were synthesised into the Recovery Mandala, which identifies seven interconnected elements central to recovery from severe mental health conditions in South Africa: Collaborative Co-creation, Person-Centeredness, Hope and Empowerment, Social Network Utilisation, Caregiver Involvement, Spirituality and Religion, and Employment. These elements reflect the relational and holistic nature of recover
Perspectives of male mental health service users on their community integration following participation in a residential-based rehabilitation programme
No full textCurrent re-engineering of primary mental health care in South Africa is directed towards providing a continuum of care for people with serious mental disorders in order to relieve the cost and resource burden of longterm hospitalisation. In the Western Cape, Healthcare 2030 has been adopted as the guiding vision for health system reform. Residential-based rehabilitation programmes have been introduced to assist mental health service users to improve their functioning in occupations of daily life so that they are better equipped to cope with community living. Problem: There is limited South African occupational therapy research into male mental health service users' perspectives on the contribution that residential-based rehabilitation programmes makes to their community integration, despite the high numbers of males using the service. Purpose: To inform public mental health services on the contribution of a residential-based rehabilitation programme to the community integration of men with serious mental disorders. Research question: How does participation in a residential-based rehabilitation programme contribute to the community integration of men with serious mental disorders? Objectives of the study: To identify what men with serious mental disorders consider community integration to be, and to describe the key elements within the residential-based rehabilitation programme that influenced their community integration. Research design and methodology: An instrumental case study design was used to guide the research methodology and five male participants were identified through purposive sampling. Observations, semi-structured interviews, community maps and document analysis w ere used as data collection tools. Data was audio-recorded and transcribed f or inductive and thematic cross-case analysis. Ethical principles of beneficence, autonomy and non-maleficence were upheld throughout the research process. Findings: One theme and three categories emerged in the findings. The theme, 'It's a catch-22 situation', comprises three categories, namely: 'It's not just what you call it'; 'There's no one size for all'; and 'It's tricky choosing between places to go and things to do'. Conclusion: Male mental health service users who participate in a residential-based rehabilitation programme will be better prepared for community integration if they are involved in co-constructing their recovery plan so that it is more personalised
Interview with Fadia Gamieldien, University of Cape Town
No full textPhD fellow Fadia Gamieldien shares her experiences as an Occupational Therapist specializing in mental health treatment in Cape Town, South Africa. She works as a senior clinical educator for the Department of Health and Rehabilitation Services, Division of Occupational Therapy, and has been working in mental health services since 1997. Ms. Gamieldien focuses on public mental health services through innovation, social engagement and intersectional collaboration.https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/ot-global-voices/1000/thumbnail.jp
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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