Research News

Supervised by Dr. M. Anisur Rahman

Abstract

The present study was conducted to see mental health problems among 402 students of Dhaka University and outcome of psychological treatments on 7 students seeking help for their psychological problems at the Guidance and Counselling Centre of Dhaka U000TK, 5001-niversity. There were two parts of the study. In part I, to find the mental health problems among the students of Dhaka University, General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) was applied on 402 students of Dhaka University. By analyzing GHQ-12 scores it was found that a high percentage (55%) of the students were identified as having clinical level of psychiatric distress. Chi- Squire Test was done between mental health status (based on GHQ-12 score) and variables such as gender, marital status, religion, origin, living status, faculty, educational stage, income of family, income of student, number of siblings and family size of the subjects of this study, where the cut-off point was 3. No significant association was found between male and female Ss. Interestingly, significant association was found between GHQ-12 scores and variables like marital status (married and unmarried), religion (Muslim and others), origin (urban and rural), educational level (1®‘ year, 2"‘* year, 3'^'* year, 4‘*’ year, masters and above), and family income (0-5 lOOOOTK, 10001-20000TK and 20000TK+). On the other hand, no significant association was found between GHQ-12 scores and variables such as living status(residential and non-residential), faculty (science, humanities and commerce), individual income of the student (yes or no), number of sibling (0-2 or 2+), and family size (small or large). Significant correlation coefficients were found between GHQ-12 scores and age, level of education, family income and students’ income. On the other hand, no significant correlation coefficient was found of birth order, number of sibling and family size with GHQ-12 scores. In part II, 7 cases seeking psychological help were selected randomly at the Students Guidance and Counseling Centre of Dhaka University for giving them psychotherapeutic intervention to see its outcome on them. The major problems of the cases were as follows: relationship problem- 3 cases, conflict about career choice- 2 cases, depressive illness-2 cases. The major causes of their clinical conditions were personality pattern, academic problems, developmental problems, communication difficulties, negative automatic thoughts (NATs), family problems, emotional problems and physical ailments. To see the outcome of psychological treatment GHQ-12, 10-point self-rating scale, anxiety scale, depression scale and goal assessment sheet were applied and pre intervention scores were compared with post-intervention scores. Marked improvements were noticed at the post intervention phase in all cases. Mainly, cognitive behavior therapy was used to see the outcome of psychological treatment of the 7 cases. But depending on the need of the clients Person Centered Counselling along with Cognitive Behavior Therapy was also used. The specific therapeutic techniques used in this study were psycho education, ventilation, graded task assignment, distraction, contract, exposure, role play, anger management, assertiveness training, behavioural experiment, breathing retraining, muscular relaxation, imaginary relaxation, exercise, recreational activities, cognitive restructuring, downward arrow technique, empowering self, making hope and see dream, self reward and worry postpone. The lowest number of session was 5 and the highest number of session was 18 were required by the clients. The results of the present study evinced that the majority students of Dhaka University are in clinical level of psychiatric morbidity. Many of them are suffering from mental health problems. The results also demonstrated clearly that psychological treatment is effective in dealing with students’ clinical conditions. It is suggested that adequate psychological services be made available to the students in the greater interest of the nation.