Capturing the thoughts, processes and experiences of positive emotional well-being in Indian adolescents: A Focus Group Study
Background
Importance of young people’s voice in research
On a global scale, adolescent voice and perspective has been largely absent from mental health research. However, this is changing, with the development of the research agender calling for ‘no research about me without me’ (BMC, 2018). This agenda stresses the importance of including the thoughts and experiences of the target population in research, ensuring that the research conducted is reflective of real-life contexts, ultimately adding value to the current research, as well as the wider field. The inclusion of young people’s voice in psychological wellbeing and mental health research is important as this helps to ensure that findings remain relevant to young people (e.g. capturing what is really important to young people), as well as allowing young people to be heard.
Impact of culture on well-being
Alongside adolescents own perspective being absent from mental health research, the impact of culture on young people’s mental health and wellbeing is also limited, with western and adult data often being applied to young people globally (e.g. Bernaras, et al., 2019; Mansfield, Patalay & Humphrey, 2020). As research indicates that cultural views and norms have a large influence over perceptions and determinants of wellbeing (Rathod et al., 2017), it is important that culture is considered in mental health research. For example, as wellbeing is partially subjective, being influenced by the individual’s perception of how life ‘should be’ (Diener & Suh, 1997), key aspects of wellbeing are likely to be influenced by culture, resulting in wellbeing, as well as factors leading to positive wellbeing, differing between cultures.
The purpose of conducting focus groups with Indian adolescents
Study aims
The aim of the research that I conducted in India was to elicit the narratives, meanings, process and experiences of emotional wellbeing within young people in India to further understand positive emotional wellbeing within this population. Alongside findings from this study bringing a unique and informative contribution to adolescent emotional wellbeing among young people in India, a further aim for this data is for findings to be used (along with findings from other studies) to develop a theory of wellbeing specific to adolescent in India.
Adolescent specific theory of well-being
Findings from this research will be used to help develop a theory of positive emotional wellbeing among Indian adolescents as the development of theories is important in driving research and interventions (Bernaras et al., 2019). As within India an estimated 9.8 million adolescents aged between 13 and 17 years have mental health disorders (Gururaj et al., 2016), further understanding adolescent wellbeing from young Indian people’s own perspectives and what constitutes and sustains Indian adolescent wellbeing will advance much needed knowledge, research and interventions.
There is a particular need for the furthering of theory in this area as many current theories of adolescent mental health are limited, with this field being complex and rarely developmentally attuned. For example, many current adolescent theories of wellbeing are based on western and adult frameworks, reducing their relevance to young people (e.g. Bernaras, et al., 2019; Mansfield, Patalay & Humphrey, 2020). As adolescence is a unique formative time where the young person experiences many physical, societal and emotional changes (Jaworska & MacQueen, 2015), as well as facing unique environmental factors, it can be argued that specific wellbeing theories need to be developed to account for this.
Data collection experience
In order to elicit young people's thoughts and experiences of positive emotional wellbeing we conducted a series of Focus Groups. These were conducted with young people attending schools associated with the SAMA project. Prior to the Focus Groups, students who teachers thought to have good emotional wellbeing were approached to take part. Following this, the students who showed an interest in participating were asked to provide both personal and parental and personal consent.
Across three days, we conducted 10 focus groups with young people aged between 14 and 17 years from four different Government schools. The Focus Groups were conducted during the school day and consisted of between four and eight participants each. The groups all consisted of same-gender participants in order to encourage the young people to talk more openly about their experiences. Four of the focus groups consisted of female participants, with the remaining six coinciding of males, with each lasting approximately one hour. The focus groups were conducted by me and Lucy, with us leading five focus groups each. As the levels of English Speaking ability varied between groups we were accompanied by a translator (either a teacher at the school or a member of SAMA) to aid with the understanding of participant responses.
Before beginning the Focus Groups, basic demographic information (e.g., age, gender, SES information) was collected from participants in the form of a short survey. The focus groups began with the researcher explaining the importance of obtaining young people’s own thoughts and experiences in emotional wellbeing research to the adolescents. Following this, participants engaged in five separate tasks which saw them discussing different topics within their group. Firstly, participants discussed and defined ‘positive emotional wellbeing’. Participants also discussed what, from their own experiences, constitutes positive emotional wellbeing, as well as discussing factors which contribute to positive emotional wellbeing in young people, at a personal, environmental and national level. Items taken form the Warick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale (WEMWBS; Tennant et al., 2007) were also used to see which previously identified components of positive emotional wellbeing from a popular measure were identified as also being important for positive emotional wellbeing among young people in Indian. These discussions were achieved through open group discussions prompted by the researcher, as well as interactive tasks, such as ordering factors in terms of their importance to positive emotional wellbeing.
The Focus Groups were audio recorded and are currently being transcribed. Once transcription has been completed thematic analysis will be used to analyse the discussions. This will ultimately provide us with a selection of factors that adolescents in India identify as contributing to the positive emotional wellbeing of young people of their age.
Reflections on cross cultural focus group work
Overall, the participants engaged well with the focus group activities and were eager to discuss the topic areas, providing many insightful and perceptive thoughts into positive emotional wellbeing. However, reflecting on this experience of conductive Focus Groups within another culture, the main obstacle that we came across was the number of different in language spoken by the participants. In order to attempt to reduce this obstacle, it would be advisable to include more visual methods, which can be used to break down any language barriers and involve all participants in the discussions or tasks. Furthermore, we found that participants were more engaged during more interactive tasks (e.g. order the items of the WEMWBS in order of importance). Therefore, focus groups completed cross culturally should strive to include more interactive and visual components to ensure that all participants can engage fully.
References:
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