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Towards Understanding the Relationship Between Psychosocial Factors and Ego Resilience Among Primary School Children in a Kenyan Setting: A Pilot Feasibility Study

Community Mental Health Journal volume 55, pages 1038–1046 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Ego resilience in childhood is linked to positive mental health outcomes but varies across cultures. Kenya presents a unique context in which children are vulnerable to adversity. We therefore hypothesized that Ego resilience traits are found in Kenya. We aimed to: (i) demonstrate Ego resilience in Kenya, (ii) determine associated social-demographic and psychological factors in a non-clinical population of primary school going children, (iii) contribute to the global data base with Kenyan data and (iv) lay the grounds for informed future and more focused studies in Kenya. We used a socio-demographic questionnaire, Ego Resilience scale (ER-89) and the Youth Self Report (YSR). Multivariate analyses showed the only independent predictors of Ego resilience were female gender (p < 0.001) and peri-urban region (p < 0.001). We did not find any association between Ego resilience and YSR syndrome scores in this non-clinical population study. We achieved our aims.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by a Grant from Grand Challenges Canada (#0083-04) and was supported by the Africa Mental Health Foundation (AMHF). Kelly Anderson was supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship Award from CIHR (#274885). We acknowledge Professor Jenelle R. Shanley from The Pennsylvania State University for critiquing the manuscript. Our appreciation to Ruth Ruhara, Darius Nyamai and Grace Mutevu of AMHF for their editorial inputs and the parents, teachers and children for their unreserved cooperation.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Africa Mental Health Foundation, P.O. Box 48423 – 00100, Nairobi, Kenya

    David Ndetei, Victoria Mutiso, Christine Musyimi, Abednego Musau, Albert Tele & Isaiah Gitonga

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

    David Ndetei

  3. Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Toronto, ON, Canada

    Anika Maraj, Kelly Anderson & Kwame McKenzie

  4. Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Christine Musyimi

  5. Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Kwame McKenzie

Authors
  1. David Ndetei
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  2. Victoria Mutiso
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  3. Anika Maraj
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  4. Kelly Anderson
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  5. Christine Musyimi
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  6. Abednego Musau
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  7. Albert Tele
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  8. Isaiah Gitonga
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  9. Kwame McKenzie
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Contributions

DN, KM, VM and KA conceptualized the idea for the study and developed the study design. AM1, AM2 and AT conducted the analyses. CM wrote the first draft while IG reviewed it and contributed to the final draft. All authors finally read, reviewed and approved the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David Ndetei.

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Conflicts of Interest

Authors declare that they have no financial or non-financial competing interests.

Research Involving Human Participants

Ethics approval was obtained from the Research Ethics Boards at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Kenya Medical Research Institute.

Informed Consent

The school head teachers’ gave permission for school participation, parents provided written informed consent for their child to participate and the children signed a written assent form that contained information on procedures, risks versus benefits of the study, confidentiality measures, and the right to withdraw or participate in the study at their own volition.

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Ndetei, D., Mutiso, V., Maraj, A. et al. Towards Understanding the Relationship Between Psychosocial Factors and Ego Resilience Among Primary School Children in a Kenyan Setting: A Pilot Feasibility Study. Community Ment Health J 55, 1038–1046 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10597-019-00425-5

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Keywords

  • Psychosocial factors
  • Ego resilience
  • School aged children