Authors:Shristi Rijal, Aney Rijal, Rajan Paudel, Dipika Neupane, Amod Kumar Poudyal Abstract: Background Young adults undergo various stressful events that lead to the onset and progression of mental health problems including depression, anxiety, and social dysfunction. Despite the high prevalence of emotional distress, many students in university education have low intention to seek help for solving their problems. Aim The aim of this study was to examine the help-seeking intentions, source of help-seeking, and associated factors with help-seeking intention during emotional distress. Method A cross-sectional study was conducted among a total of 963 undergraduate students from 22 campuses of Kathmandu district, Nepal. After removing responses with five percent (or more than two items) missing data, 929 valid ones were further analyzed. The help-seeking intention, severity of distress, and perceived social support were measured using General Help-seeking Questionnaire, General Health Questionnaire-12, and Nepal Family and Social Support and Difficulties Scale, respectively. Result More than half of the participants (53.4%) had some form of anxiety, depression, or social dysfunction while 59% of the participants had perceived low social support. 54.5% of the students had high intention of seeking help through informal sources. Conclusion The decreased level of perceived social support and increase in depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation were the common factor of not seeking help. PubDate: 2024-05-21 DOI: 10.3126/hprospect.v23i1.45547 Issue No:Vol. 23, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Kiran Paudel, Kamal Gautam, Prashamsa Bhandari, Sangam Shah, Jeffrey A Wickersham, Bibhav Acharya, Sabitri Sapkota, Samir Kumar Adhikari, Phanindra Prasad Baral, Archana Shrestha, Roman Shrestha Pages: 1 - 10 Abstract: Background: Suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) are prevalent within the LGBTQ community, often exacerbated by challenges in accessing care and the perceived stigma and discrimination tied to disclosing one's identity. Digital health interventions that offer psychosocial self-help present a promising platform to reach individuals at risk of STB, especially those who may not engage with conventional health services. This review aimed to assess the role of digital-based intervention in reducing STBs among LGBTQ individuals. Methods: We conducted a systematic literature search from three databases, PsycINFO, PubMed, and CINHAL, from 1st Jan 1990 to 31st December 2023. The review encompassed studies investigating the feasibility, acceptability, and impact of digital interventions on STBs, employing randomized control trials (RCTs), pseudo-RCTs, observational pre-posttest designs, and qualitative studies. Potential bias was evaluated using the McGill Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool (MMAT). Results: Five non-overlapping studies were included, reporting data from 777 participants. The studies featured diverse types of digital interventions, including videos, online writing, and mobile applications. The studies included three RCTs, and two qualitative studies. Across most of these studies, notable enhancements or reductions in the proportion of participants reporting STBs were observed post-intervention, alongside improvements in help-seeking intentions. The findings underscored that the applications used in the studies were engaging, acceptable, and deemed feasible in effectively addressing suicide prevention among the LGBTQ community. Conclusion: Overall, digital interventions were found to be feasible and acceptable in suicide prevention among LGBTQ communities, demonstrating preliminary efficacy in increasing help-seeking behavior when experiencing suicidal thoughts and in reducing STBs. Therefore, advocating for widespread promotion and dissemination of digital health interventions is crucial, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) with limited access to health services and heightened barriers to obtaining such services. Further research using fully powered RCT is imperative to assess the efficacy of these interventions. PubDate: 2024-03-11 DOI: 10.3126/hprospect.v23i1.62795 Issue No:Vol. 23, No. 1 (2024)
Authors:Bibha Simkhada, Alexander van Teijlingen, Padam Simkhada, Edwin Roland van Teijlingen Pages: 21 - 24 Abstract: The past year saw an exponential growth in the use of machine learning using AI (artificial intelligence) and particularly Generative AI (GenAI) such as ChatGPT. The latter has seen a spectacular rise in the public debate and in the mass media. Those not involved in the development of AI were amazed by the capabilities of ChatGPT to produce text equal to the average human produced texts. There is no doubt that the adoption of AI is advancing rapidly. To test the ability of ChatGPT in its free version, we posed simple questions about the topic we had previously published. After reading the short essay produced by ChatGPT we repeated the question whilst asking for references to be included. We were surprised by the quality of this very general piece of work. In many UK universities there is a debate starting about students’ use of ChatGPT, and how difficult it is to distinguish between work produced by the average student and that produced by AI. There is a similar problem for editors and reviewers of academic journals. It really boils down to the question: 'How can you be certain the submitted manuscript came from a human source'’ However, we feel the progress of AI is not all doom and gloom. We outline some of the key problems around AI and academic publishing, but also opportunities arising from the use of AI in this area. PubDate: 2024-05-22 DOI: 10.3126/hprospect.v23i1.60819 Issue No:Vol. 23, No. 1 (2024)
Open Access journal
[155 journals]
