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.