Abstract
Aims and method To assess adolescents' perceptions of their psychiatric illness and the role of various demographic factors in a Pakistani setting. Adolescents with various psychiatric diagnoses were interviewed using a structured questionnaire including the Illness Perceptions Questionnaire–Revised (IPQ-R).Results Fifty-two adolescents with various psychiatric illnesses were interviewed; their mean age was 12.7 years and the majority (67%) were female. Males had significantly higher scores on timeline and emotional representation (P<0.05), suggesting strongly held beliefs about chronicity of their illness and anger and worry about their condition. Adolescents' own emotional state, stress, family problems and bad luck were endorsed by participants as some of the causal factors in their mental illness.Clinical implications Despite the importance of early intervention in psychiatric problems, engaging youth in the treatment process in Pakistan remains difficult. Better understanding of how adolescents perceive their psychiatric difficulties may play a significant role in developing culturally sensitive interventions and better utilisation of services.
Highlights
The current knowledge about Pakistani adolescents’ perceptions of their illness, stigma and help-seeking behaviour is limited, despite assertions about adolescents’ capability of ‘making decisions and choices on the basis of their own representations of health threats and illness’.4. To address this knowledge gap, the current study focuses on the beliefs of adolescents regarding their psychiatric illness and treatment in the context of Pakistan’s unique cultural, religious and social context and attempts to determine whether various demographic factors have any role in these perceptions
History of psychiatric illness was present in 21% (n = 11) and 15.4% (n = 8) had a history of psychiatric admission
The present study provides insight into how adolescents in Pakistan understand their psychiatric illnesses
Summary
Symptom severity of PTSD and depression was significantly associated with lack of refugee status and accumulation of traumatic events. Four domains of traumatic events (human rights abuse, lack of necessities, traumatic loss, and separation from others) were not uniquely associated with symptom severity. Clinical implications To account for multiple predictors of symptom severity including multiple traumatic events, treatment for traumatised refugees may need to be multimodal and enable the processing of multiple traumatic memories within a reasonable time-frame. Refugees and asylum seekers have been shown to be at substantially higher risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)[1] and comorbid mental health problems than the general population,[2] compatriots who have stayed in the refugees’ home country,[3] and economic migrants.[4] Exposure to a high number of potentially traumatic events, involvement in asylum-seeking procedures and forced migration are stressors that set refugees apart from other
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