The Inspirited Minds Adapted Intervention: Feasibility study of a faith-based culturally adapted intervention to promote mental health and well-being in young Muslim women

PLAIN ENGLISH SUMMARY

What is this project about?
The mental health and well-being of young people is a growing issue. Young women are three times more likely to be affected by mental health problems than young men, which can affect the rest of their lives. Mental health issues also affect Black Asian and Minority Ethnic populations differently, with evidence of increased long-term depression among British Muslims compared with other groups. They are less likely to access help and therapy when they need it and say that mental health services need to do more to understand and address their cultural needs.

This research project will evaluate a faith-based culturally tailored programme developed by Inspirited Minds (IM), a Muslim charity which aims to help improve the mental health and well-being of young Muslim women..
We want to find out 1) whether it is possible to compare the IM programme with a typical mental health programme (like the National Health Service (NHS)) and 2) test how well our research plans and ways of collecting data work. This ‘feasibility’ study will be conducted in East London and Birmingham. It will help understand how the IM programme works, young women’s engagement and their experiences of taking part. It will inform a future larger study to show if the programme improves young women’s mental health and well-being and is good value for money.

What will the research involve?

We will ask young Muslim women aged 18-24 years seeking help with IM, if they would like to take part in the study. Eligible women will be allocated randomly to one of two groups:
1) the IM programme
2) a standard NHS mental health programme

We will ask the participants some questions around their mental health, well-being, and engagement with the programme. We will also conduct group or 1:1 discussion so we can better understand their experience of the programme, as well as the views of the therapists delivering the sessions.

How we will do the research
We will look at:
• How we can allocate young women to different groups
• If participants are willing to complete questionnaires to tell us how their mental health and general well-being has changed
• Understanding how the group sessions work (observation)
• Experiences of the programme and research by participants and therapists
•Collecting information on the costs of the programme to understand if it is good value for money in the future

Public involvement in the project

We want to incorporate young people’s views from the start and all the way through the project. We are working with IM to set up a young people’s advisory group for the project and have spoken with IM service users to help shape this proposal. We will have two or three young Muslim co-researchers or advisors who will also sit on the project steering group together with relevant charities and services involved in mental health support. The University of Hertfordshire’s (UH) Public Involvement in Research Group have commented on the summary and we will involve various stakeholders including health professionals and policy makers, who will also help us to share our findings at the end of the study. The project will be led by UH in collaboration with various universities, IM charity and public health specialists.