Paramjit Jamir Singh

Caregiver coping with the mentally ill: a qualitative study

Abstract Background: Mental illness is a disease that affects millions of people every year. It not only causes stress to the mentally ill patients, but also for the family members who provide them the care. The family caregivers, therefore need some form of coping strategies in dealing with their mentally ill family members. Aims: This qualitative study aims at identifying and analysing the coping strategies adopted by the family caregivers in dealing with their mentally ill family members. Method: A total of 15 family caregivers from the state of Kedah, Malaysia participated in the face-to-face semi structured interview. Results: The study findings identified an array of coping strategies used by the family caregivers, including religious coping, emotional coping, acceptance, becoming engaged in leisure activities, and the use of traditional healing to help them cope with their mentally ill members. Suggestions and conclusions: Study suggests that the family caregivers should engage themselves in social support groups to learn about and obtain the positive coping strategies used by other caregivers who have similar experiences in caring for the mentally ill. Study also suggests that they should get appropriate training from the mental health professionals in order to enhance the caregivers’ coping skills.

Transgender Coping Strategies Dealing with Family Members in Penang, Malaysia

This qualitative study was conducted in Penang, Malaysia. The study aims to analyze patterns of family member’s acceptance level due to their children’s transgender identity existence. In the same time, this study aim to gather in-depth understanding on transgender coping strategies towards family member’s acceptance level due to their transgender identity. Selection of 18 respondents was through the snowballing sampling technique due to the difficulty of getting the targeted respondents. Respondents who have participated in this study were among transgender populations between the ages of 18-40. Two (2) major themes have been identified in this study. The significant findings include: The existence of family acceptance and rejection towards their children’s transgender identity and (2) Youth transgender experienced negative and positive coping strategies towards family member’s acceptance and rejection due to their transgender identity. The study findings indicated that a total of 7 out of 18 respondents have experienced family members’ rejection due to their gender identity. This study suggests that both government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) could play a role in educating family member and society in coping with their love one who identify as transgender

The mentally ill and their impact on family caregivers: A qualitative case study:

The impact of mental illness is profound. This qualitative study aims to explore the impact experienced by family caregivers who provide care to relatives with mental illness. A total of 15 family caregivers from the state of Kedah in Malaysia participated in this study. The findings indicated that the family caregivers experienced four types of negative impact, including financial burdens and social, psychological and physical health. This study suggests that the family caregivers should engage in support groups to obtain emotional support and the required information from other caregivers who have similar experiences in caring for individuals with mental illness.