Spiritual conceptualizations of mental health among students at Makerere university, Kampala: a case study of Phaneroo Religious Group
Abstract
Against a background that the mental health of college and University students has attracted
growing attention in the past three or four decades as reported by UNESCO (2021), coupled
with the fact that severe psychoses occur in most institutions at an average rate of about two
for every thousand students enrolled per year. And the common term that 1 in every10 students’
needs a psychiatrist. (Digital Library, 2022) this backed by the fact that mental health problems
of students differ in various countries depending on how many go to college, supported with
the common fact that most mental health indicators are highly dependent on spiritual health
(Dan, 2021) together with the fact that spirituality influences many decisions people make
(WebMd, 2022), IT is therefore upon this that I choose to undertake this study.
The purpose of this research was to explore the spiritual conceptualization on mental health
that that students at Makerere University held. The study was guided by three objectives
namely (1) To explore the spiritual meaning of mental health among students in Makerere
University, (2) to document the understanding of spiritual mental health disturbances among
students of Makerere University, (3) to discover how spirituality has affected mental health
among students in Makerere University.
The research was purely qualitative in nature with data collected randomly from major key
participants and focus group discussions. The sample size was rather relatively small as 12
students did take part voluntarily.
The study findings did highlight the complexity of mental health and spirituality as concepts
and also did expose the research to yet more interesting developments, debates and theses that
may be used as a yardstick to critique the research in the nearby future. The study did expose
the spiritual meanings students have on mental health, spiritual understanding of mental health
disturbances and also exposed the role of the religion, church and spirituality in influencing
student’s mental health at the University.