Date of Award
12-2023
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Health Policy and Management
First Advisor
Dr Narjis Rizvi
Second Advisor
Dr Jawed Akbar Dars
Third Advisor
Dr Ahsana Nazish
Department
Community Health Sciences
Abstract
Background: Mental health disorders severely impair an individual's intellectual, emotional, and behavioural functionality and have a considerable impact on their lives. The rising prevalence of anxiety disorders among adolescents in Sindh, Pakistan, demands an assessment of the community's readiness to address this problem.
Methods: This qualitative study adopted the Community Readiness Model (CRM) enabling integration of both in-depth interview analysis and a scoring component in form of a quantifiable community readiness score. The study recruited participants using purposive sampling technique in order to garner a wide array of perspectives from a diversified stakeholder group including adolescents, parents, teachers, government representatives, healthcare providers, religious scholar, and non-governmental organizations (NGO) officials. The in-depth interviews, guided by CRM, were meticulously transcribed, ensuring accurate representation of stakeholder insights. Using the CRM toolkit, the in-depth interviews were scored, and an average community readiness score was calculated that corresponded to one of the nine levels of readiness.
Results: The findings revealed that the stakeholder readiness is at level 3 that corresponds to the stage of vague awareness. Community climate/attitude received the highest score of 3.7 indicating that the community is concerned about the escalating burden of anxiety among adolescents, and they acknowledge the need for intervention. However, at the same time, the domain for resources received the lowest score of 2.6 indicating that there are only limited resources and there is little to no action to allocate these limited resources to address the issue. Even though the stakeholders perceived the rising mental health disorders among adolescent to be an important issue they are not adequately translating this into policy formulation and program designing. Widespread myths, misconceptions, and stigma around mental health disorders still prevail within the community. Furthermore, the respondents also 9 emphasized upon the parental hesitancy to seek professional help for their child’s mental health disorder as they are under the apprehension of being prescribed psychotropic medicines unnecessarily. Stakeholders reported that there is paucity of well-trained healthcare workers who can diagnose, manage, and refer adequately. Finally, the findings also highlight upon the discrepancy between leadership recognition of the issue and lack of prioritization thus absence of targeted initiative and policies for adolescents’ mental well-being in Sindh, Pakistan.
Conclusion and recommendations: Stakeholders’ readiness for addressing anxiety among adolescents is at vague awareness level. Widespread myths, misconceptions, and stigma around mental health disorders still prevail and requiring awareness raising campaigns. Paucity of well[1]trained healthcare workers for managing anxiety and other mental health disorders among adolescents demanding training of healthcare workers to identify and appropriately manage anxiety and other mental health disorders among adolescents. Policy makers acknowledge the rising burden of anxiety and mental disorder but inadequately translate this health need into policies and programs. Evidence-based workshops should be organized for advocating policy makers for the development of policies and programs for this rising burden of anxiety among adolescents.
First Page
1
Last Page
80
Recommended Citation
Abbas, K.
(2023). Stakeholder’s readiness to address the rising burden of anxiety disorders among adolescents in sindh, Pakistan: A qualitative study. , 1-80.
Available at:
https://ecommons.aku.edu/etd_pk_mc_mhpm/64