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Measuring Difficult-to-Measure Concepts in Clinical Social Work Practice Operationalizing Psychosocial Well-Being Among War-Affected Women: A Case Study in Northern Uganda

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Abstract

This article addresses the question of how to define, operationalize, and measure psychological and social well-being. Well-being is a concept central to successful outcomes in clinical social work practice, and its promotion is a goal of the profession, yet it is rarely taken into account when we develop evidence-based practices. The complexity of the construct has led to it being described in the literature as “unmeasurable” (Corlazzoli and White in Measuring the un-measurable: solutions to measurement challenges in fragile and conflict-affected environments. Department for International Development (DFID), London, 2013). This article describes and discusses a participatory study of 649 conflict-affected women in a post-conflict region of Northern Uganda that used grounded theory to define and operationalize this concept from the standpoint of women program participants for the purpose of future monitoring and evaluation. The results indicated that poor and often marginalized conflict-affected women were able to envision, articulate, and describe their future well-being, with implications for other populations experiencing severe adversity. The study resulted in the development of a practical method to evaluate the effectiveness of future programs from the standpoint of program participants.

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Notes

  1. The study in Northern Uganda was part of a larger one, involving 1,298 conflict-affected women in Burundi, Nepal, and Northern Uganda (Bragin et al. 2014a). The complete report is available from CARE Austria at http://care.at/images/Dokumente/CARE_3_Country_Study_To_Be_Well_at_Heart.pdf.

  2. The focus groups for the study were limited to women who participated in some form of solidarity group, to ensure that personal needs could be identified and handled immediately and followed up over the long term by qualified personnel. This condition was required by the Ugandan Joint Clinical Research Center Aggregated Institutional Review Board as well as the Institutional Review Board of Hunter College, CUNY. All research documents and protocols received prior approval from both of these bodies.

  3. Three men participated in the focus groups. One was a village cultural leader who had joined a related “men’s awareness” program, another was an elected leader who wanted to observe the proceedings, and the third was a disgruntled community member who happened to be around during the focus group and asked to sit in. None of these men participated in concept validation. Three men, senior Acholi religious and cultural leaders, were included as key informants. Their names were put forward by the women who respected them as people who could help fill in the study’s knowledge gaps.

  4. A manual for adapting the methods used in this article is available online from CARE International at https://care.at/images/expert/pdf/COE_Resources/Psychosocial/The_SEE_PET_for_Women.pdf.

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Acknowledgments

This article is based the findings of a study funded by a grant from CARE Austria. The authors are grateful to the leadership and staff of CARE Austria and CARE International in Uganda for their support for the study, without which it would not have been possible.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, CUNY, 2180 3rd Ave., New York, NY, 10035, USA

    Martha Bragin, Kelsey Adolphs & Hannah Gray

  2. Dan Church Aid, Kampala, Uganda

    Janepher Taaka

  3. UNICEF, Pristina, Kosovo

    Tonka Eibs

Authors
  1. Martha Bragin
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  2. Janepher Taaka
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  3. Kelsey Adolphs
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  4. Hannah Gray
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  5. Tonka Eibs
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martha Bragin.

Additional information

The full study, To be well at heart: Conflict-affected women’s perceptions of well-being: A participatory study in Burundi, Nepal, and Northern Uganda is available at http://care.at/expert/coe-resources/psychosocial.

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Bragin, M., Taaka, J., Adolphs, K. et al. Measuring Difficult-to-Measure Concepts in Clinical Social Work Practice Operationalizing Psychosocial Well-Being Among War-Affected Women: A Case Study in Northern Uganda. Clin Soc Work J 43, 348–361 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-014-0507-0

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