A qualitative and longitudinal study of the daily mobility of the elderly. Journal of Environmental Psychology

Qualitative Methods: An Example

Qualitative Methods: An  Example Program Transcript

NARRATOR: Dr. Sreeroopa Sarkar’s  research study  is  an example of qualitative research. Its  design was  made particularly  interesting because of cultural questions  and decisions  that guided the design process. Listen as  she explains.

SREEROOPA  SARKAR: Today, I’m going to describe two research studies  that myself and Dr. Bonnie Nastasi of Walden University  have carried out for   promoting mental health among the schoolchildren in the South Asian countries   of Sri Lanka and India. These two studies  were formative in nature and it aimed at assisting the mental health needs  of the adolescent school students  in these two countries  and resources  available to them  to deal with any  kind of mental health issues.

The first study  was  initiated in Sri Lanka. We wanted to test the model in a similar   culture. So as  a native of India, I wanted to extend this  study  on the model that we developed in Sri Lanka and wanted to test it in a similar  culture in the neighboring country  of India. We expected that India and Sri Lanka has  many   similarities  in cultures.

I’d like to share with you why  we decided to carry  out these two studies  in two different cultures. We have been involved in a sexual risk  prevention project with the youth in Sri Lanka. And during our  interviews  with the young adults, many  of the mental health issues  that came up such as  suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, and so on-­-­ for  example, suicide rate among the adolescents  in Sri Lanka was   very  high. That was  also the case for  adolescents  in India.

Sri Lanka has  the highest rate of suicide in the world. And the rate of suicide among the adolescent population, particularly  between the age of 15 to 18, is   highest in India. We also found out that drug and alcohol abuse is  on the rise in both cultures  and there are also incidents  of gang activities  or  criminal activities, community  violence, that were affecting the adolescents  and the young adults  in both countries.

We started looking into the literature and we also found that there is  very  limited emphasis  on mental health issues  in both cultures. There are also very  limited resources  available. For  example, in Sri Lanka, there are only  19 psychiatrists   available for  a population of 20 million. There are also misconceptions  as  well as   widespread ignorance about mental illnesses  and mental disorders. And there are also cultural stigmas  about mental illnesses  in both of these cultures.

In this  background, we decided to initiate our  first study  in Sri Lanka. And for   conceptualizing mental health for  the purpose of our  study, we used three theoretical frameworks. One was  Bronfenbrenner’s  ecological developmental framework, which emphasizes  on the role of ecology  in influencing a person’s

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Qualitative Methods: An Example

development. We also used personal and environmental factors  model, which emphasizes  the importance of personal factors  as  well as  environmental factors   in influencing a person’s mental health. And the third framework  that we have used was  the primary  prevention of mental illnesses  through promotion of personal social competencies.

So based on these theoretical frameworks, we generated six  major  mental health constructs  or  variables  that are related to mental health. First was  the culturally   valued personal and social competencies. The second construct was  social stressors  as  viewed by  the adolescents  in that culture.

Third was  what kind of coping strategies  that the youth utilized to deal with major   mental health problems  and stressors. Fourth was  what kind of social resources   that are available to the youth to deal with mental illnesses. Fifth was  personal and family  history  that makes  an individual vulnerable to mental illnesses. And the last was  socialization practices  and agents  that influences  a person’s development.

We realized that using a qualitative research method would be very  effective in this  formative research stage. We have decided to use the ethnographic   research tradition because we were trying to understand mental health from  the perspective of the people from  two different cultures  which are very  different from   the cultures  that we see in the United States. We wanted to learn about the culture from  the perspective of the people of the culture. We wanted to get a definition of mental health as  the people from  that country  defined it-­-­ how they   viewed mental health, how they  viewed different mental health problems, what kind of attitudes  they  have toward mental health. So we felt that ethnographic   research method will enable us  to get a very  culture specific  definition of mental health.

We conducted focus  group interviews  with the schoolchildren. We started with open ended questions  and based on what kind of responses  we are getting-­-­ for   example if they  wanted to discuss  a particular  topic, we also wanted to focus  on that particular  topic  and discuss  it with the children in detail.

I’ll give you an example. When we were conducting interviews  with them  and we asked them  about social stressors, many  of the children were very  vocal about academic  pressure. And we wanted to explore that issue in detail and we asked them  more questions about academic  pressure. And we found out that there are several factors  such as  rigorous  examination system  in the country, high level of competition, parental pressure for  academic  achievement, as  well as  lack  of opportunity  for  identity  creation were identified as  major  stressors  by  the children.

Another  example would be when asking females  students  about social stressors   in India and Sri Lanka, girls  talked a lot about sexual harassment and molestation that they  encounter  in everyday  life. So we were very  interested and asked them

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Qualitative Methods: An Example

more questions  about that and we wanted to discuss  it in detail. We found out the girls  are regularly  teased by  boys  on the streets  and they’re also molested frequently  in the public  transportation by  men. They  identified that problem  as  a major  social stressor  for  them. We expected that the findings  from  these studies   will help us  developing a culture specific  survey  questionnaire and an intervention tool that we can use with a larger  population of adolescent students   in both of these countries.

I’ll give you some of the examples  of our  findings. Some of the characteristics  of personal social competencies  as  defined by  the adolescents  in that culture included honesty, hard work, ability  to balance between work  or  play, and respect for  elders. Social stressors  as  viewed by  the adolescents  included poverty, academic  pressure, sexual harassment, family  violence, fights  between the parents, and divorce of the parents. Some of the coping strategies  that they   described included crying, pouting, isolation, listening to music, or  seeking support from  family  members, from  parents, and from  friends. Social resources   available to the adolescents  included seeking support from  family, friends, or   seeking support from  private tutors  who particularly  helped them  in their   academic  needs. Interestingly, students  never  discussed getting any  kind of support from  professionals  such as  psychiatrists  or  psychologists.

Based on our  findings  from  both of these research studies, there are several implications. First, the findings  from  these studies  suggested a strong need for   mental health services  for  the adolescent school students  in both of these countries. Secondly, based on the qualitative data as  well as  our  intervention data, we expect to recommend to the policymakers  of the country  several things. We expect to recommend them  that they  may  explore the opportunity  for   integrating personal/social competency  promotion or  life skill training to the children in the schools, such as  how to deal with stressors. It will teach them   resiliency  or  it will teach them  how to seek  support when they  are having some kind of mental health problems.

One of the challenges  that I personally  had to deal with while carrying out this   research was  keeping out my  personal biases. I am  a native of India and am  very   familiar  with the culture of India as  well as  Sri Lanka. So when I went out there and I was  carrying out interviews, I had to make sure that my  personal biases   doesn’t interfere with data collection or  data interpretation. And I think  that’s important for  any  qualitative researchers  to remember, that we have to be careful. We have to be aware of any  kind of personal biases  that we bring in with ourselves  into the research.

In closing, I would like to say  that, as we expected, qualitative research was   found very  effective for  this  particular  study. We found a very  culture specific   definition of the major  mental health constructs  that we were looking into. And based on the definition of this  construct, we were successful in developing a culture specific  instrument for  collecting data as  well as  we developed an

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Qualitative Methods: An Example

intervention program  that we implemented in Sri Lanka. We hope to do the same in the future in India with the qualitative data that we have collected there.

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