Psychosocial Intervention to Map and Address Psychological Problems of Lower Income Children and

Women: An Empirical Model

Muhammad Irfan Sania Amin

Pakistan

Rethinking Urbanisation and Equity in Asia: Harnessing the Potential of Urban Living for All

Children

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Session A1: Wellbeing and Multidimensional Poverty Presentation: 2

Introduction

• Many of the health problems in urban slums stem from the lack of access to or demand for basic amenities. Basic service provisions are either absent or inadequate in slums.

• Lack of drinking water, clean, sanitary environment and adequate housing and garbage disposal pose series of threats to the health of slum dwellers, women and children in particular, as they spend most of their time in and around the unhygienic environment.

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Introduction• Mental Health is an emerging and larger challenge

around the world and particularly in developing countries like Pakistan. Mental illness is prevalent in all regions of the world, in every community and across every income level but it's prevalence is drastically high among low income groups.

• An estimated 13% of the global burden of disease on mental disorders, almost three quarters of burden affecting people in lower & middle-income countries (Grand Challenges Canada).

3Rethinking Urbanisation and Equity in Asia: Harnessing the Potential of Urban Living for

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Introduction

• New urban settings characterized by a radical process of change with positive and negative effects, increased inequities, greater environmental impacts, expanding metropolitan areas and fast growing slums. In order to meet the health challenges that new urban settings create, it is important to grasp the nature and scale of urbanization, the various driving forces that affect it and the factors and determinants of health that are linked to this process.

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Introduction• The acceleration in the rate of urbanization has been

accompanied by an equally alarming increase in urban poverty.

• At this time there are approximately three billion people living in urban areas, and proximately a billion now living in slums.

• Lack of basic services, Substandard housing or illegal and inadequate building structures, Overcrowding and high density, Unhealthy living conditions and hazardous locations, Insecure tenure, irregular or informal Settlements, Poverty and social exclusion, Minimum settlement size% of urban residents are slum-dwellers.

5Rethinking Urbanisation and Equity in Asia: Harnessing the Potential of Urban Living for

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Introduction• Urban poverty is severe, pervasive and largely

unacknowledged. According to the latest Global Report on Human Settlements, 43% of the urban population in developing regions lives in slums. In the least developed countries, 78.

• Demographics of Karachi• Slums in Karachi• Demographics and patterns of Slum area under study

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Methodology

• To study the mental health status of people living in lower income class a community based mental health program was designed and selected comparatively demographically heterogeneous community and on the basis of initial six months intervention and follow-up since October 2013 to April 2014.

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Results

• 220 patients were registered and analyzed on different variables, 80% patients diagnosed with different psychological disorders. Proportion of Females were 68%, children 19% and adult males were 15%. Most of the female patients were diagnosed with depression, mania, anxiety, convulsion, phobia, marital problems, domestic and marital violence, schizophrenia, pregnancy complications etc.

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Results

• Children were diagnosed with depression, Mental Retardation, ADHD, Bed-wetting, epilepsy, eating disorders, drug abuse, waywardness, delinquency, and aggressive behavior etc. Overall follow-up by the patients was 67%, women 60% and for Children was 40%. Various other inferences were also drawn to map the mental health status of community particularly for women and children.

9Rethinking Urbanisation and Equity in Asia: Harnessing the Potential of Urban Living for

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Implications for Policy/Practice

• Mother and child health should be improved through proper implementation on immunization campaigns.

• Violence against women should be stopped and related laws should be promulgated.

• Physical and emotional violence is common in slums, therefore state parties should devise such policies to educate women about their rights.

• Participation of women should be important particularly decisions that are affecting them.

• UNCRC should be implemented with its true spirit.

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Conclusion• On the basis of this study it was found out that most of

the women and children in slum areas are deprived form their basic rights that leads them towards physical and psychological trauma.

• Children are not enjoying their basic fundamental rights that are given in UNCRC that cause the issues for children, therefore children related national and international laws should be implemented.

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Acknowledgment

• I would like to thanks all the community members and my clients who shown their persistency to show their commitment for the betterment of their physiological and psychological health, who are taking part in therapeutic process in a community who denies the significance of mental illness.

12Rethinking Urbanisation and Equity in Asia: Harnessing the Potential of Urban Living for

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