Abbott, Pamela

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Aberdeen University Research

1/312 December 2022Can mindfulness training in primary schools promotemental wellbeing in Sub-Saharan Africa?openaccessgovernment.orgThere is growing evidence that whole-school mindfulness trainingdelivered as an integral element of the curriculum promoteschildren’s mental well-being and improves educational outcomes(Phan et al., 2022)The Global Health Research Group on Promoting Children’s and Adolescents’ (CAs)Mental Wellbeing in sub-Saharan Africa, funded by the National Institute for Health andCare Research (NIHR), aims to contribute to improving the mental well-being of CAs insub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by researching the effectiveness and efficiency of deliveringmindfulness training in primary schools, in two of the poorest SSA counties, Ethiopia andRwanda.This mindfulness training can be taught by teachers with minimal training and has alsobeen shown to improve said teachers’ well-being as well as that of CAs. For this reason,WHO recommends that mental well-being interventions should be provided for all CAs.However, a recent review of mental health interventions for adolescents in SSA found thatmost had targeted adolescents at high risk of mental health problems, and none haddelivered mindfulness training (Mabrouk et al., 2022).The research is being carried out by a multidisciplinary team of academics, combiningmedical and health science expertise with social science expertise, from Addis AbabaUniversity, Ethiopia, the University of Rwanda, and the University of Aberdeen, workingin an equitable partnership.Convention on the Rights of the ChildChildren have a right to enjoy a healthy childhood and to be educated as set out in theConvention on the Rights of the Child. Yet, due mainly to socioeconomic challenges, manychildren in SSA are denied these rights, and their quality of life and well-being is poor.They are less likely to grow up to be healthy and productive adults. Poor physical andmental health results in poor academic attainment, with high economic costs forindividuals, their families, communities, and countries.A high proportion of adults with mental health challenges experiencedthem before they were 15Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability in CAs in SSA, and the numbers haveincreased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Statistical data on the prevalence of mentalhealth challenges in CAs is limited, but pre-pandemic, it was estimated that 1 in 7 CAs hada mental health challenge (Cortina et al., 2012). There is a severe shortage of specialist2/3mental health services for CAs (Sequeira et al., 2022). For example, our scoping study inRwanda and Ethiopia found that although both countries have developed CA mentalhealth policies, specialists by adequately training the teachers and making mindfulnesspractice part of the school routine rather than relying on CAs practising independentlyafter the initial mindfulness training.The importance of mindfulnessMindfulness aims to promote an awareness of the present by CAs paying non-judgemental attention to thoughts, sensations, perceptions, and feelings. It is thought toenhance self-regulation, improving well-being (Amundsen et al., 2020). However, muchpast research has not considered the pathway from intervention to improved mentalwelling. We aim to do so in our research by examining both the process of changes in theschool context and individual children while the intervention is being delivered, as well ascomparing outcomes for the intervention schools with control (waitlist) schools. We willask what works, for whom, and how and why it works in our intervention schools.The Mindfulness InterventionThe design of our mindfulness intervention is a whole-school quasi-experimental pilotstudy informed by critical realism. The intervention will be delivered in a rural school inRwanda and a low-income urban school in Ethiopia. We will address weaknesses thatprevious research has identified in whole-school interventions by adequately training theteachers and making mindfulness practice part of the school routine rather than relyingon CAs practising independently after the initial mindfulness training.Key elements of our project include community engagement and involvement at all stagesof the research and the training of Rwandan and Ethiopian teacher educators andschoolteachers in mindfulness. Teacher educators will provide support during theimplementation phase. The intervention will be developed by trained teacher educatorsand primary school teachers informed by the findings from participatory action research(PAR) involving community members, including parents and CAs, on culturalacceptability.The intervention will be delivered for a school year in the intervention schools andsubsequently in the waitlist schools. We will conduct a parental survey, a teacher surveyand psychometric tests, and psychometric tests with CA before the intervention begins inthe intervention and waitlist schools and after the end of the school year. Mid-year we willrepeat the psychometric tests for CAs and teachers. We will conduct qualitative researchusing focus group discussions and individual interviews with purposive samples of pupilsand teachers, enabling us to explain for whom, how and why the intervention improvesCAs’ mental well-being.References3/31. Amundsen R, Riby LM, Hamilton C, et al. (2020) Mindfulness in primary schoolchildren as a route to enhanced life satisfaction, positive outlook and effectiveemotion regulation. BMC Psychology 8(1). BMC Psychology: 1–15. DOI:10.1186/s40359-020-00428-y.2. Cortina MA, Sodha A, Fazel M, et al. (2012) Prevalence of Child Mental HealthProblems in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Systematic Review. Archives of Pediatrics andAdolescent Medicine. American Medical Association. DOI:10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.592.3. Mabrouk A, Mbithi G, Chongwo E, et al. (2022) Mental health interventions foradolescents in sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review. Frontiers in Psychiatry 13:937723. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2022.937723.4. Phan ML, Renshaw TL, Caramanico J, et al. (2022) Mindfulness-Based SchoolInterventions: a Systematic Review of Outcome Evidence Quality by Study Design.Mindfulness 13(7): 1591–1613. DOI: 10.1007/s12671- 022-01885-9.5. Sequeira M, Singh S, Fernandes L, et al. (2022) Adolescent Health Series: The statusof adolescent mental health research, practice and policy in sub-Saharan Africa: Anarrative review. Tropical Medicine and International Health 27(9): 758–766. DOI:10.1111/tmi.13802.Please Note: This is a Commercial Profile This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.  

Can mindfulness training in primary schools promote mental wellbeing in Sub-Saharan Africa?

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Can mindfulness training in primary schools promote mental wellbeing in Sub-Saharan Africa?

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