Naiema Taliep

Evaluating the Construct Validity of the Kidscreen-52 Quality of Life Questionnaire within a South African Context:

The absence of a suitable measure to assess the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of children and adolescents in South Africa, led to the use of the KIDSCREEN-52 questionnaire, which was developed and standardised in Europe. The current study is part of a broader study conducted in the Western Cape, which used the KIDSCREEN-52 to explore the influence of exposure to community violence on the subjective HRQoL of a sample of South African adolescents. This study aimed to investigate the reliability and construct validity of the KIDSCREEN-52 in a South African context. The broader study employed stratified interval criterion sampling to select 565 Grade 9 learners, aged 14–18. Participants were selected from six public schools in areas specified by the South African government as comprising key nodal areas in terms of crime in the Western Cape. The dataset for the current study comprised all participants (N = 565) of the primary study. As the initial step in validation of the KIDSCREEN-52 in South Africa, the current study examined its factor structure by means of exploratory factor analysis, using principal component analysis with oblimin rotations. It also assessed the internal consistency reliability of each of the scales, using Cronbachs alpha. Exploratory factor analysis extracted 10 factors as identified by previous studies, with some deviation in the loadings of the last three factors. Items of two scales (“Feelings” and “About Yourself”) divided into three scales, and “Bullying” items were not sufficiently presented in the factor solution. Internal consistency of the measure was shown to be acceptable to good, with Cronbachs alpha values ranging from 0.76 to 0.81 for the 10 scales.

Community-Based Participatory Research a Low-Income Setting: An Illustrative Case of Study

This article describes a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach in a low-income setting. Using the SCRATCHMAPS project as a case example and with literature control, we show that CBPR is influenced by dynamics relating to knowledge and power, resources and power, participation and power, as well as community dynamics and research methodology. We conclude that the CBPR approach offers a number of opportunities to conduct rigorous and trustworthy research and to contribute to individual and community development, despite associated difficulties.

Community Asset Mapping as a Critical Participatory Research Method

This chapter explores the use of community asset mapping as a strategy for achieving liberatory ideals. This exploration draws on one case illustration in a peri-urban Western Cape context, SCRATCHMAPS (Spiritual Capacity and Religious Assets for Transforming Community Health through Mobilizing Males for Peace and Safety). This project was located within a community-based participatory research approach, and used community asset mapping as a key strategy for community building. The chapter covers the theory and practice of asset mapping as method, discusses its application in the above context, and offers a critical account of the liberation capacities of such a method. Both successes and challenges experienced in this project are highlighted, and suggestions for how to address the ambiguities and challenges of adopting asset mapping as a critical approach to community building are offered. The authors argue that community asset mapping, guided by the values and principles of critical forms of participatory research, is a viable strategy for achieving liberatory ideals.

Identifying and Mobilising Factors That Promote Community Peace

The identification and mobilisation of factors that promote peace is central to peace promotion. Through a community-based participatory research project, SCRATCHMAPS (Spiritual Capacity and Religious Assets for Transforming Community Health through mobilising Males for Peace and Safety), a grounded-theoretical study in a low-income community in South Africa, including both quantitative and qualitative methods and forms of analysis, was conducted to explore community members’ perceptions of factors that promote peace. The findings presented in this chapter reveal a major emphasis on ‘intangible’ factors, many of them linked to a new concept of ‘spiritual capacity’, that the community believe play a central role in promoting peace. In line with initiatives that combine research and action in efforts to promote peace, the authors briefly describe how these findings were used to direct a community intervention aimed at mobilising religious assets and enabling spiritual capacity to promote peace. Structural factors such as employment and economic security are centrally important in any attempts to promote peace, but the authors argue that more attention should be focused on understanding and mobilising factors such as compassion, respect, and hope, at different levels of the social system. This raises a number of challenges to those involved in peace psychology.

A Qualitative Meta-Synthesis of Interpersonal Violence Prevention Programs Focused on Males:

Exceptionally high levels of interpersonal violence have triggered a call by many experts for the need to determine effective ways to address the onset and effects of exposure to interpersonal violence. The specific aim of this study was to identify and draw on existing promising practices to make a more informed decision on strategies to develop a contextually relevant intervention that focused on the promotion of positive forms of masculinity to create safety and peace. This study used a qualitative meta-synthesis (QMS) technique to integrate and interpret findings from various intervention studies that focused on males and/or gender. An in-depth literature search yielded a total of 827 papers that met the search criteria. After removal of duplicates, abstract review, and review of the full texts, the subsequent sample for this meta-synthesis included 12 intervention programs and 23 studies. This QMS revealed the value of a comprehensive approach, using multiple strategies, employing participatory and interactive methods, and promoting social mobilization to address interpersonal violence. The promotion of positive forms of masculinity as an interpersonal violence prevention strategy is a much-needed, relatively untapped approach to generating safety and peace for both males and females.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Complex, Multi-component, Dynamic, Community-Based Injury Prevention Interventions: A Statistical Framework:

Dynamic violence and injury prevention interventions located within community settings raise evaluation challenges by virtue of their complex structure, focus, and aims. They try to address many risk factors simultaneously, are often overlapped in their implementation, and their implementation may be phased over time. This article proposes a statistical and analytic framework for evaluating the effectiveness of multilevel, multisystem, multi-component, community-driven, dynamic interventions. The proposed framework builds on meta regression methodology and recently proposed approaches for pooling results from multi-component intervention studies. The methodology is applied to the evaluation of the effectiveness of South African community-centered injury prevention and safety promotion interventions. The proposed framework allows for complex interventions to be disaggregated into their constituent parts in order to extract their specific effects. The potential utility of the framework is successfully illustrated using contact crime data from select police stations in Johannesburg. The proposed framework and statistical guidelines proved to be useful to study the effectiveness of complex, dynamic, community-based interventions as a whole and of their components. The framework may help researchers and policy makers to adopt and study a specific methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of complex intervention programs.