The feasibility of using life skills training in primary schools to improve mental health and academic performance: a pilot study in Kenya

Mental health literacy: Perspectives from Northern Kenya Turkana adolescents

Mental illness accounts for high levels of morbidity, mortality and poor quality of life among young people. Depression, anxiety, conduct issues and hyperactive disorder account for 13% of the global burden of disease that affects one in seven adolescents. In Kenya, not much is documented about the mental health of non-school-going adolescents, and yet they make up about 1.8 million of the country's population. An ethnographic study by Focus Group Discussions with 32 rural northern Kenya Turkana-based adolescents divided into school and nonschool groups was conducted. We read out vignettes in which the main character exhibited symptoms of depression, schizophrenia or anxiety and explored their knowledge of causes and management options for the same, and then analyzed the data thematically. Participants described the conditions without referring to the local names we had collected earlier: depression (Akiyalolong), schizophrenia (waarit/Ngikerep) and anxiety (Ngatameta naaronok). They assigned curses, guilt, hunger pangs, and evil spells as causes, and believed friends and age-mates, parents, teachers, and the local chief, among others, could help, but rarely medical intervention. Interventions to improve the adolescent's knowledge of mental illness are a much-needed support for the health of young people.

Cross-Cultural Validation of the Short Form of the Life Skills Scale for Adolescents and Adults in Adolescents in Four Countries

This study aimed to translate the Japanese version of the Life Skills Scale for Adolescents and Adults (LSSAA) into Chinese, English, and Korean, simplify it, and assess its reliability and validity. Validation was performed using individual data of 9941 high-school students from China, Japan, Korea, and the United States collected by the 2021 “Survey on Experiences and Attitudes Related to the Corona Crisis” conducted by the National Institution For Youth Education. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the four-factor model of the LSSAA fit the data for all four countries. Testing of the measurement invariance of the four-factor model among the four countries supported the adoption of a weak invariance model, and the LSSAA scores were comparable across all four countries. These results suggest that the LSSAA has good reliability and validity and applies to adolescents in English-speaking countries and some Asian counties.