Socioenvironmental Determinants of Psychological Functioning, Mental Health and AIDS in Mali

Sponsor

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) (NIH)

Overall Status

Completed

CT.gov ID

NCT00339391

Collaborator

(none)

1,002

Enrollment

Location

183.4

Duration (Months)

5.5

Patients Per Site Per Month

Study Details

Study Description

Brief Summary

This project is a collaboration between the Centre Regional de Medecine Traditionnelle (CRMT) of the Malian National Institute of Public Health Research (INRSP) and the Section on Socioenvironmental Studies (SSES). These units developed a three-pronged protocol reflecting their joint and individual concerns:

Effects of occupational complexity on psychological functioning. The project tests a theory derived from previous SSES research demonstrating that in industrialized societies doing relatively self-directed, substantively complex work increases self-directed orientations to self, society and family and promotes effective intellectual functioning. It uses sociological survey methodology to determine the generalizability of this theory to an essentially pre-literate, preindustrial society.
Effects of work-related stress on mental health. Earlier SSES work demonstrated that stressful work conditions lead to distress in industrialized societies. This project extends the investigation of these effects to a non-industrialized setting. It also extends the investigation of work-related stress to include work-related migration, resting a hypothesis that relates equally to SSES and CRMT concerns: that individuals from rural ethnic groups with a cultural tradition of work-related migration will show fewer mental health problems when migrating for nontraditional work than those from cultures without such a tradition. Mental health problems are assessed through: a) adaptations of standard survey-based psychological measures of components of distress,

general and culture-specific survey-based psychiatric screening questions, and c) a psychiatric interview conducted by a CRMT psychiatrist trained in internationally accepted diagnostic procedures and knowledgeable about local cultures.

The effects of migration and cultural and socioeconomic factors on AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. The survey addresses concern regarding the degree of knowledge about the nature of AIDS among rural Malians who are relatively isolated from urban oriented sources of information about culturally non-traditional issues. It also examines how socio-cultural background and migration for work affect AIDS related attitudes and self-reported behaviors in an African society where estimates of HIV prevalence are still relatively low (less than 2%), compared to those of other sub-Saharan African countries.

Although these prongs are distinguishable, each requires a longitudinal design, a representative sample, extensive information about responders' social and cultural backgrounds, occupational histories, work conditions, and personal orientations and beliefs. Because of their overlapping theoretical approaches and methodological requirements, combining them in one project increases the richness and efficiency of the data collected for each.

Condition or Disease	Intervention/Treatment	Phase
AIDS Stress

Detailed Description

Effects of occupational complexity on psychological functioning. The project tests a theory derived from previous SSES research demonstrating that in industrialized societies doing relatively self-directed, substantively complex work increases self-directed orientations to self, society and family and promotes effective intellectual functioning. It uses sociological survey methodology to determine the generalizability of this theory to an essentially pre-literate, preindustrial society.
Effects of work-related stress on mental health. Earlier SSES work demonstrated that stressful work conditions lead to distress in industrialized societies. This project extends the investigation of these effects to a non-industrialized setting. It also extends the investigation of work-related stress to include work-related migration, testing a hypothesis that relates equally to SSES and CRMT concerns: that individuals from rural ethnic groups with a cultural tradition of work-related migration will show fewer mental health problems when migrating for nontraditional work than those from cultures without such a tradition. Mental health problems are assessed through: a) adaptations of standard survey-based psychological measures of components of distress,

general and culture-specific survey-based psychiatric screening questions, and c) a psychiatric interview conducted by a CRMT psychiatrist trained in internationally accepted diagnostic procedures and knowledgeable about local cultures.

The effects of migration and cultural and socioeconomic factors on AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes and behaviors. The survey addresses concern regarding the degree of knowledge about the nature of AIDS among rural Malians who are relatively isolated from urban oriented sources of information about culturally non-traditional issues. It also examines how socio-cultural background and migration for work affect AIDS related attitudes and self-reported behaviors in an African society where estimates of HIV prevalence are still relatively low (less than 2%), compared to those of other sub-Saharan African countries.

The division of responsibility between SSES and CRMT is as follows:

The survey questionnaire is the product of SSES/CRMT collaboration. It has been check by Malian linguists, extensively pretested by CRMT, and found feasible to administer and likely to provide highly reliable data with sufficient variance to permit the testing of our hypotheses. The project has been independently review and approved by the relevant Malian IRB the Ethics Committee and the Medical School of the University of Mali.
Data Collection involves conducting structured sociological interviews with representative rural samples from three Malian ethnic groups, carrying out psychiatric interviews with respondents who fail the psychiatric screen. The collection, processing and coding of the data is the responsibility of CRMT.
Data Analysis is primarily the responsibility of the SSES, which receives the data in a form in which individual respondents cannot be identified.

Study Design

Study Type:

Observational

Actual Enrollment :

1002 participants

Observational Model:

Cohort

Time Perspective:

Other

Official Title:

Socio-Environmental Determinants of Psychological Functioning, Mental Health and AIDS in Mali

Study Start Date :

Aug 19, 2001

Study Completion Date :

Nov 30, 2016

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcome Measures

Eligibility Criteria

Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study:

16 Years to 50 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study:

All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers:

INCLUSION CRITERIA:

The study sample is a representative sample, based on Malian census data, of approximately 1000 respondents, age 16-50, drawn equally from each of the three generally pre-literate ethnic groups - the Dogon, the Peulh and the Bozo.