Assessing the value of and contextual and cultural acceptability of the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire SDQ) in evaluating mental health problems in HIV/AIDS affected children
PUBLICATION YEAR: 2014
TITLE AUTHOR(S): D.Skinner, C.Sharp, L.Marais, M.Serekoane, M.Lenka
KEYWORDS: CHILDREN, EVALUATION, HIV/AIDS, MENTAL HEALTH
DEPARTMENT: Public Health, Societies and Belonging (HSC)
Print: HSRC Library: shelf number 11094
HANDLE: 20.500.11910/15047
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11910/15047
If you would like to obtain a copy of this Research Output, please contact Hanlie Baudin at researchoutputs@hsrc.ac.za.
Abstract
The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a robust, powerful and internationally recognised diagnostic screening tool for emotional and behaviour problems among children, with the particular advantage that it can be used by non-health professionals. This makes it useful in a South African context characterized by shortages of professional mental health carers. However the cultural and contextual acceptability and potential uses of the SDQ have not yet been examined in the South African context. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the acceptability of the SDQ in a Sesotho speaking area of South Africa. As part of a larger study to standardise the SDQ for use among Sotho speakers, teachers were asked to use the tool to assess learners in their class. Ten teachers were then asked to write a report on their experience of the SDQ and how useful and applicable they found it for their school setting. These findings were discussed at two later meetings with larger groupings of teachers. Reports were analysed using a modified contextualised interpretative content analysis method. Teachers found the SDQ very useful in the classroom and easy to administer and understand. They found it contextually relevant and particularly useful in gaining an understanding of the learners and the challenges that learners were facing. It further allowed them to differentiate between scholastic and emotional problems, assisting them in developing relationships with the pupils and facilitating accurate referrals. There were very few concerns raised, with the major problem being that it was difficult to assess items concerning contexts outside of the school setting. The teachers expressed interest in obtaining further training in the interpretation of the SDQ and a greater understanding of diagnostic labels so as to assist their learners. The SDQ was found to be acceptable and useful in the context of this very disadvantaged community. The teachers felt it assisted them in their role as teachers by providing a greater understanding of emotional and behaviour problems among learners. However, lack of places for referral and their own lack of appropriate skills and time did generate frustration.-
Related Research Outputs:
- Perspectives of healthcare professionals of the neuropsychiatric side effects associated with efavirenz and its management
- School connectedness as psychological resilience factor in children affected by HIV/AIDS
- A qualitative study on teachers' perceptions of their learners' mental health problems in a disadvantaged community in South Africa
- Association between ART adherence and mental health: results from a national HIV sero-behavioural survey in South Africa
- Clinical perspectives: strengthening infants and children: South African perspectives
- Integrating services, marginalizing patients: psychiatric patients and primary health care in South Africa
- Impact of a mother-infant intervention in an indigent peri-urban South African context
- Monitoring alcohol and drug abuse trends in South Africa. Proceedings of South African Community Epidiology Network on Drug Use (SACENDU) report back meetings, March/April 2002; July-December 2001: Phase 11
- Poverty, underdevelopment and infant mental health
- Introduction
- Report on the child and adolescent mental health policy guidelines workshop
- Evidence, policies and practices: continuities and discontinuities in mental health promotion in a developing country
- Culture and mental health
- Improving school children's mental health in an era of HIV/AIDS
- Mental health and HIV/AIDS: report on a round-table discussion, March 2003
- Violence against women and its mental health consequences in Namibia
- Report on the provincial round table: implementing the child & adolescent mental health policy guidelines
- HIV/AIDS in developing countries: heading towards a mental health and consequent social disaster?
- The current situation of HIV/AIDS in South Africa
- Some crystal ball gazing: mental health in 2015