Adapting culturally appropriate mental health screening tools for use among conflict-affected and other vulnerable adolescents in Nigeria

Kaiser, BN

Ticao, C

Anoje, C

Minto, J

Boglosa, J

Kohrt, BA

2019-07-02T12:47:29Z

2019-07-02T12:47:29Z

2019

2019-07-02T12:47:29Z

<jats:sec id="S2054425119000086_sec_a1"><jats:title>Background</jats:title><jats:p>The Boko Haram insurgency has brought turmoil and instability to Nigeria, generating a large number of internally displaced people and adding to the country's 17.5 million orphans and vulnerable children. Recently, steps have been taken to improve the mental healthcare infrastructure in Nigeria, including revamping national policies and initiating training of primary care providers in mental healthcare. In order for these efforts to succeed, they require means for community-based detection and linkage to care. A major gap preventing such efforts is the shortage of culturally appropriate, valid screening tools for identifying emotional and behavioral disorders among adolescents. In particular, studies have not conducted simultaneous validation of screening tools in multiple languages, to support screening and detection efforts in linguistically diverse populations. We aim to culturally adapt screening tools for emotional and behavioral disorders for use among adolescents in Nigeria, in order to facilitate future validation studies.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S2054425119000086_sec_a2" sec-type="methods"><jats:title>Methods</jats:title><jats:p>We used a rigorous mixed-method process to culturally adapt the Depression Self Rating Scale, Child PTSD Symptom Scale, and Disruptive Behavior Disorders Rating Scale. We employed expert translations, focus group discussions (<jats:italic>N</jats:italic> = 24), and piloting with cognitive interviewing (<jats:italic>N</jats:italic> = 24) to achieve semantic, content, technical, and criterion equivalence of screening tool items.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S2054425119000086_sec_a3" sec-type="results"><jats:title>Results</jats:title><jats:p>We identified and adapted items that were conceptually difficult for adolescents to understand, conceptually non-equivalent across languages, considered unacceptable to discuss, or stigmatizing. Findings regarding problematic items largely align with existing literature regarding cross-cultural adaptation.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec id="S2054425119000086_sec_a4" sec-type="conclusion"><jats:title>Conclusions</jats:title><jats:p>Culturally adapting screening tools represents a vital first step toward improving community case detection.</jats:p></jats:sec>

2054-4251

2054-4251

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/19066

en

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Global Mental Health

10.1017/gmh.2019.8

Science & Technology

Life Sciences & Biomedicine

Psychiatry

Behavioral disorders

cultural adaptation

depression

PTSD

Nigeria

SELF-REPORTING QUESTIONNAIRE

PRIMARY-CARE SERVICE

PSYCHIATRIC MORBIDITY

RATING SCALE

DEPRESSION

CHILD

DISORDERS

VALIDATION

SYMPTOMS

VALIDITY

Adapting culturally appropriate mental health screening tools for use among conflict-affected and other vulnerable adolescents in Nigeria

Journal article

School of Medicine

Duke

Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Social and Community Psychiatry

Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences

Clinical Science Departments

Published

6