Resilience represents a person’s ability to positively adapt to life’s inevitable ups and downs. In the West, the concept of resilience has been turned into several in-depth assessment scales that help mental health practitioners assess psychological well-being and the attributes that enable a person to adjust to setbacks.
“People found to have high levels of resilience on these scales tend to think and act in more positive, constructive ways when faced with challenges,” says Shireen Shehzad, an assistant professor at Aga Khan University’s School of Nursing and Midwifery (SONAM).
“Like a sponge, they’re able to absorb pressure, modify their behaviour and attitude, and bounce back to a state of mental wellbeing. These qualities help protect their mental health from increasingly common conditions such as depression, stress and anxiety which often go unnoticed,” adds Ms Shehzad,
whose research has led to the development of South Asia’s first validated, local language scale for resilience.
While the use of such resilience scales is common in the West, the absence of tools that reflect South Asia’s frame of reference and mode of expression mean that many aspects of resilience are misunderstood by practitioners in the region. Ms Shehzad and her team of researchers worked to address this gap by collaborating with US-based Dr Gail Wagnild, the creator of one of the world’s most widely accepted measures for resilience, the Wagnild Resilience Scale.
Researchers first produced an Urdu translation of Dr Wagnild’s scale that was reviewed by content experts. This was then translated back to English by two separate individuals and then reviewed by Dr Wagnild to ensure that all the core competencies of resilience had been captured. The scale was then pre-tested on a community of women with similar socio-economic circumstances to the target population.
Community health workers were then trained in the use of the scale which was then applied in two, economically-deprived urban squatter settlements in Karachi’s Shah Faisal Town and Malir. Previous research has already shown a clear link between poverty and a person’s vulnerability to mental health challenges. By testing the scale among married women in some of the poorest communities in Karachi, researchers validated its usefulness in a population at high-risk of negative mental health outcomes.
They found that the tool helped them explore how they could take charge of their own health and happiness. Many women said that the questionnaire helped them share mental health issues that they had felt but not expressed before. The local language scale can be used to identity vulnerabilities in people of all ages and social backgrounds in the country thereby enabling mental health professionals to quickly access those most in need of counselling or life-skill building sessions.
“Resilience is not a trait that people are born with or either have or do not have. It involves behaviors, thoughts and actions that can be learned and developed by anyone. Instead of focusing on treating diseases we should look to promote the development of qualities that can safeguard the mental wellbeing of society. By advocating for the widespread application of this tool we hope to promote a more constructive, empowering approach towards mental health,” Ms Shehzad added.
The objectives of the study are in line with global efforts to achieve targets under goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals. Goal 3: ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, which calls for special efforts to promote mental health and wellbeing.
Several AKU faculty members were a part of the research team involved in the project: Omrana Pasha, a senior lecturer at the CHS, Professor Rozina Karmaliani from SONAM and the department of community health sciences (CHS), Dr Nargis Asad, an associate professor in the department of psychiatry and Iqbal Azam, an assistant professor at the CHS.