Browsing by Author "Abubakar, Amina"

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    Mental Health Interventions for Adolescents in Sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review
    (Frontiers in psychiatry, 2022-08-11) Mabrouk, Adam; Mbithi, Gideon; Chongwo, Esther; Namuguzi, Mary; Atukwatse, Joseph; Ssewanyana, Derrick; Abubakar, Amina
    Globally, adolescents are vulnerable to mental health problems, particularly those from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) due to impoverished living conditions and a higher prevalence of chronic conditions such as HIV/AIDS in the region. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated this risk. This calls for an urgent need for evidence-based adolescent mental health interventions to reduce the risk and burden of mental health problems in SSA. The review aims to identify and characterize existing adolescent mental health interventions in SSA, as well as to evaluate their implementation strategies and effectiveness. We systematically searched PubMed, African Index Medicus, PsycINFO, Web of Science, and CINAHL databases for relevant articles. Furthermore, we searched gray literature databases, including Think Tank search, open gray, NGO search engine, and IGO search engine for additional relevant articles. The scoping review was conducted to identify original research articles on mental health interventions among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa published from database inception to 31 December 2021. We carried out a narrative synthesis to report our findings. Our literature search generated 4,750 studies, of which 1,141 were duplicates, 3,545 were excluded after screening, and 64 articles met the inclusion criteria. The 64 studies describe a total of 57 unique mental health interventions comprising 40,072 adolescents. The nature of these interventions was diverse, encompassing various implementation strategies such as economic-based, family strengthening, psychoeducation, interpersonal psychotherapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and resilience training, among others. Most of the interventions were selective interventions that targeted adolescents at high risk of developing mental health problems including adolescents living with HIV, war-affected adolescents, orphans, adolescents from poorer backgrounds, and survivors of sexual violence. Half of the interventions were delivered by lay persons. Sixty-two of the eligible studies examined the effectiveness of the mental health interventions, of which 55 of them reported a positive significant impact on various mental health outcomes. The review findings show that there exist several diverse interventions that promote mental health among adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa. These interventions can be implemented in diverse settings including schools, communities, health facilities, and camps, and can be delivered by lay persons.
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    Neurocognitive and mental health outcomes in children with tungiasis: a cross-sectional study in rural Kenya and Uganda
    (BioMed Central, 2023-11) Otieno, Berrick; Elson, Lynne; Matharu, Abneel K.; Riithi, Naomi; Chongwo, Esther; Katana, Khamis; Nasambu, Carophine; Mutebi, Francis; Feldmeier, Herman; Krücken, Jürgen; Fillinger, Ulrike; Abubakar, Amina
    Abstract Background Tungiasis, a neglected tropical parasitosis, disproportionately afects children. Few empirical studies have reported neurocognitive and mental health outcomes of children with ectoparasitic skin diseases like tungiasis. Pathophysiology of tungiasis suggests it could detrimentally afect cognition and behaviour. This study pioneered the investigation of neurocognitive and mental health outcomes in children with tungiasis. Methods This was a multi-site cross-sectional study including 454 quasi-randomly sampled school-children aged 8–14 from 48 randomly selected schools in two counties in Kenya and a district in Uganda. The participants were stratifed into infected and uninfected based on the presence of tungiasis. The infected were further classifed into mild and severe infection groups based on the intensity of the infection. Adapted, validated, and standardized measures of cognition and mental health such as Raven Matrices and Child Behaviour Checklist were used to collect data. Statistical tests including a multilevel, generalized mixed-efects linear models with family link set to identity were used to compare the scores of uninfected and infected children and to identify other potential risk factors for neurocognitive and behavioural outcomes. Results When adjusted for covariates, mild infection was associated with lower scores in literacy [adjusted β(aβ)=− 8.9; 95% confdence interval (CI) − 17.2, − 0.6], language (aβ=− 1.7; 95% CI − 3.2, − 0.3), cognitive fexibility (aβ=− 6.1; 95% CI − 10.4, − 1.7) and working memory (aβ=− 0.3; 95% CI − 0.6, − 0.1). Severe infection was associated with lower scores in literacy (aβ=− 11.0; 95% CI − 19.3, − 2.8), response inhibition, (aβ=− 2.2; 95% CI − 4.2, − 0.2), fne motor control (aβ= − 0.7; 95% CI − 1.1, − 0.4) and numeracy (aβ=− 3; 95% CI − 5.5, − 0.4). Conclusions This study provides frst evidence that tungiasis is associated with poor neurocognitive functioning in children. Since tungiasis is a chronic disease with frequent reinfections, such negative efects may potentially impair their development and life achievements. Keywords Tungiasis, Tunga penetrans, Neglected tropical disease, Neurocognition, Mental health, School-aged children, Africa