Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jn8rn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T10:48:00.886Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Using Ethnographic Methods in the Selection of Post-Disaster, Mental Health Interventions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Paul Bolton  and
Alice M. Tang
Paul Bolton*
Affiliation:
Center for International Health and Development, Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Alice M. Tang
Affiliation:
Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Tufts School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
*
Center for International Health and Development, Boston University School of Public Health, 715 Albany Street, T-4 West Boston, MA 02118USA E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper describes a short, ethnographic study approach for understanding how people from non-Western cultures think about mental health and mental health problems, and the rationale for using such an approach in designing and implementing mental health interventions during and after disasters. It describes how the resulting data can contribute to interventions that are more acceptable to local people, and therefore, more effective and sustainable through improved community support.

Keywords

assessmentcross-culturalcultureethnographicinterventionsmental healthqualitative
Type
Special Reports
Information
Prehospital and Disaster Medicine , Volume 19 , Special Issue 1: Psychosocial Themes , March 2004 , pp. 97 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Ahearn, FL (ed): Psychosocial Wellness of Refugees: Issues in Qualitative and Quantitative Research.New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2000.Google Scholar
2.Summerfield, D: A critique of seven assumptions behind psychological trauma programmes in war-affected areas. Soc Sci Med 1999;48:144–62.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
3.Bracken, P, Petty, C: Rethinking the Trauma of War. London and New York: Free Association Books, 1998.Google Scholar
4.Silove, D, Ekblad, S, Mollica, R: The rights of the severely mentally ill in post-conflict societies. Lancet 2000;355(9214):1548–1549.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
5.Neugebauer, R (ed) Minding the world's health: World Health Day 2001. Amer J Public Health 2001;91(4):551–552.Google ScholarPubMed
6.Bolton, P, Weiss, W: Communicating across cultures: Improving translation to improve complex emergency program effectiveness. Prehosp Disast Med 2002;16(4):252–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7.Spradley, J: The Ethnographic Interview. Fort Worth, USA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1979.Google Scholar
8.Weiss, W, Bolton, P: Training in qualitative methods for PVOs and Non-Governmental Organizations. Available at http://www.jhsph.edu/refugee/resources.html. Accessed 26 June 2003.Google Scholar
9.Bolton, P, Bass, J, Neugebauer, R, et al. : Results of a clinical trial of a group intervention for depression in rural Uganda. JAMA 2003;289:3117–3124.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
10.Burkle, FM, Bolton, P, Watson, PJ: Disaster-Related Mental Health Interventions: Review of the Published Literature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2001 (available on request).Google Scholar
11.Bolton, P, Ndogoni, L: Cross-Cultural Assessment of Trauma-Related Mental Illness: A Report of Research Conducted by World Vision Rwanda and The Johns Hopkins University. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2000 (available on request).Google Scholar
12.Bolton, P: Cross-cultural validity and reliability testing of a standard psychiatric assessment instrument without a gold standard. J Nerv Ment Dis 2001;189(4):238–242.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed