Mental health and young women

A new research brief by the South African Medical Research Council’s Health Systems Research Unit looks at the mental health stressors on adolescent girls and young women who were part of the Imagine programme that was implemented by NACOSA in Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal and Moretele in the North West. Research authors, led by Zoe Duby from the SAMRC and including NACOSA’s Catalytic Grant Manager, Colleen Wagner, found:

• Poor mental health, including high levels of stress, is associated with increased risk behaviours resulting in negative sexual and reproductive health outcomes amongst adolescent girls and young women.
• Intersecting factors across individual, interpersonal, microlevel and structural levels that are salient mental health stressors experienced by young women.
• Respondents who had participated in the Imagine Programme reported improved mental health and well-being due to increased access to psychosocial support.

The research brief concludes that mental health interventions for adolescent girls and young women need to take a multilevel approach to enabling individual internal resilience by strengthening interpersonal, social, contextual and structural resilience resources available.