Major focus areas in departmental research are common mental disorders, suicidal behaviours, women and adolescent mental health, with the aim to take forward the multi-disciplinary agenda for better mental health outcomes in Pakistan.
Recent Research Projects
(1) South Asia Self Harm Research Capability Initiative-SASHI (Extramural Grant)
SASHI formed in late 2015 is a collaboration by the Centre for Mental Health and Society at Bangor University, UK. It is a partnership between researchers in South Asia (India & Pakistan) and the UK. The purpose of the SASHI project is to find effective responses to self-harm and suicide in South Asia by building research infrastructure and promoting expertise, with a particular emphasis on quality surveillance systems.
SASHI's main aim is to produce new and robust information to inform the understanding of the nature of SH in the context of profound social, political and economic challenges in low and middle-income countries (LMIC) including Pakistan and India. The SASHI Self Harm Register (SHR) is being implemented in Mysore, Indian (Rajendra et al., 2015). This will be a joint project between two UK universities (University of Manchester and Bangor University), AKU and JPMC.
(2) Patterns of Suicide and Self-harm: A Retrospective Study from Medico-Legal Centers In Karachi, Pakistan - URC (Internal Grant)
Considering the limited evidence available on suicidal behaviors in Pakistan, our aim is to conduct a retrospective study on patterns of suicide and self-harm, utilizing the information in reports of medico-legal centers in Karachi during the period from January 2015 to December 2019.
This will help us identify population groups most vulnerable to suicidal behaviors and to develop appropriate suicide prevention programmes.
The study will also identify gaps in the process of information gathering and recording in suicide cases. Based on our findings we hope to generate recommendations for improvement in data collection and recording in suicide cases in Karachi.
This will be the first study where source of data will include all MLCs of Karachi, thereby being representative of the population of Karachi. This will give us a clearer picture of the problem of suicide in Karachi as well as enhancing the external validity of the study by ensuring the generalizability of the study findings.
(3) Fostering Resilience In Teachers: Helping Teachers Support Students Through Traumatic Times In The Context Of Covid 19 And Other Traumas (Internal Grant)
This study aims to improve the resilience and self-efficacy of Deh Chuhar school teachers through online training course modules, during the COVID pandemic in Pakistan.
This initiative will build resilience and self-efficacy of school teachers by teaching them to recognize their own struggles and deal with their stress effectively. It will also help to enhance their reflection skills so they can be aware of their strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to improve and impart education in a holistic fashion. It will improve their understanding of a student's state of mind enabling them to recognize a student's distress and responding to it in an empathic manner. Subsequently, this can improve a teacher- student bond, build trust, allow teachers to focus on student strengths and be more attuned to their struggles. Ultimately, this can lead to well settled students, thus building the child's resilience indirectly. This can be one avenue to alleviate long term mental health consequences of the COVID 19 pandemic.
Strengthening resilience and self-efficacy among teachers and students will enable school management to respond to the immediate challenges of reopening schools in the pandemic and prepare them to cope with future crises.
