119
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: found
      • Article: found
      Is Open Access

      Correlates of psychological functioning of homeless youth in Accra, Ghana: a cross-sectional study

      research-article

      Read this article at

      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Background

          Research on homeless youth has shown that this population is at high risk for various mental health problems. Previous studies conducted among homeless young adults in Ghana have focused primarily on economic, social and cultural causes of homelessness, their engagement in risky sexual behaviours and the prevalence of STI including HIV/AIDS. We are therefore not fully informed of the prevalence of psychological symptoms and their associated factors. The aim of the study was to determine the association between psychological functioning and social and health risk behaviours among a sample of homeless youth in Ghana.

          Methods

          A cross-sectional survey of a convenience sample of 227 (122 male and 105 female) homeless youth was conducted in Ghana in 2013. An interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect data due to low level of literacy among the study population. Pearson-moment correlation coefficient ( r) and multiple standard regression models were fitted to analyse the data.

          Results

          Approximately 87% of the participants in this study exhibited moderate to severe psychosocial symptoms. Specifically, emotional, conduct, hyperactivity and peer relationship problems among the participants were 69%, 74%, 54% and 89% respectively. Overall psychosocial functioning was predicted by stigma (self-stigma and experienced stigma), violent behaviours and suicidal ideation. Substance use and perceived resilience were significantly associated with emotional problems.

          Conclusion

          There is a need for holistic interventions to help improve the psychological and social functioning of homeless youth. Such programmes should strengthen socio-emotional coping strategies in street youth as well as address contextual risk factors such as stigma and discrimination by the public.

          Related collections

          Most cited references49

          • Record: found
          • Abstract: found
          • Article: not found

          Development of a new resilience scale: the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC).

          Resilience may be viewed as a measure of stress coping ability and, as such, could be an important target of treatment in anxiety, depression, and stress reactions. We describe a new rating scale to assess resilience. The Connor-Davidson Resilience scale (CD-RISC) comprises of 25 items, each rated on a 5-point scale (0-4), with higher scores reflecting greater resilience. The scale was administered to subjects in the following groups: community sample, primary care outpatients, general psychiatric outpatients, clinical trial of generalized anxiety disorder, and two clinical trials of PTSD. The reliability, validity, and factor analytic structure of the scale were evaluated, and reference scores for study samples were calculated. Sensitivity to treatment effects was examined in subjects from the PTSD clinical trials. The scale demonstrated good psychometric properties and factor analysis yielded five factors. A repeated measures ANOVA showed that an increase in CD-RISC score was associated with greater improvement during treatment. Improvement in CD-RISC score was noted in proportion to overall clinical global improvement, with greatest increase noted in subjects with the highest global improvement and deterioration in CD-RISC score in those with minimal or no global improvement. The CD-RISC has sound psychometric properties and distinguishes between those with greater and lesser resilience. The scale demonstrates that resilience is modifiable and can improve with treatment, with greater improvement corresponding to higher levels of global improvement. Copyright 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
            Bookmark
            • Record: found
            • Abstract: found
            • Article: not found

            Ordinary magic. Resilience processes in development.

            The study of resilience in development has overturned many negative assumptions and deficit-focused models about children growing up under the threat of disadvantage and adversity. The most surprising conclusion emerging from studies of these children is the ordinariness of resilience. An examination of converging findings from variable-focused and person-focused investigations of these phenomena suggests that resilience is common and that it usually arises from the normative functions of human adaptational systems, with the greatest threats to human development being those that compromise these protective systems. The conclusion that resilience is made of ordinary rather than extraordinary processes offers a more positive outlook on human development and adaptation, as well as direction for policy and practice aimed at enhancing the development of children at risk for problems and psychopathology.
              Bookmark
              • Record: found
              • Abstract: found
              • Article: not found

              Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms.

              The concept of mechanisms that protect people against the psychological risks associated with adversity is discussed in relation to four main processes: reduction of risk impact, reduction of negative chain reactions, establishment and maintenance of self-esteem and self-efficacy, and opening up of opportunities. The mechanisms operating at key turning points in people's lives must be given special attention.
                Bookmark

                Author and article information

                Contributors
                kwappong@gmail.com
                meyerweitza@ukzn.ac.za
                PETERSENI@ukzn.ac.za
                Journal
                Int J Ment Health Syst
                Int J Ment Health Syst
                International Journal of Mental Health Systems
                BioMed Central (London )
                1752-4458
                3 January 2015
                3 January 2015
                2015
                : 9
                : 1
                : 1
                Affiliations
                [ ]Discipline of Psychology, School of Applied Human Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Howard College Campus, Durban, 4041 South Africa
                [ ]Department of Psychology, Regent University College of Science & Technology, Accra, Ghana
                Article
                214
                10.1186/1752-4458-9-1
                4292989
                25587353
                68afc806-9f6d-49b9-b8d4-6f277159e9fd
                © Oppong Asante et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015

                This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

                History
                : 25 July 2014
                : 17 December 2014
                Categories
                Research
                Custom metadata
                © The Author(s) 2015

                Neurology
                homeless youth,mental health,psychological functioning,resilience,substance use,violent behaviours

                Comments

                Comment on this article

                scite_

                Similar content653

                Cited by23

                Most referenced authors489