Email this article Exploring Unintended Pregnancies among Mentally Ill Women in Southwest Nigeria: An mHealth Perspective
Abstract
Incidents of mentally ill women experiencing unintended pregnancies are on the rise, yet little research has been conducted to understand the reasons behind men subjecting these women to such situations in Southwest Nigeria and other regions, highlighting a gap in mHealth literature. To address this phenomenon, this study utilized Focus Group Discussions (FGD) with twelve kindred of mentally ill women and conducted interviews with six mHealth experts and six volunteers. Data analysis involved a pen-and-paper-based process, including organizing and analyzing transcripts printed out, highlighted, cut, and physically arranged into flipcharts during group analysis sessions. The study identified seven themes that emerged from the analysis: (a) Mentally ill women encounter sexual assault; (b) Struggle for improved living conditions; (c) Vulnerability; and (d) Fulfilling instinctual urges. Other themes include; (e) Nature's social union; (f) Sexual assaults and consequences; and (g) Child protection and custody, which have been elaborated upon in detail in this paper. The study recommends government-family interventions to reduce the number of mentally ill women roaming the streets, provision of psychiatric hospitalization or non-psychiatric shelter care homes for victims, and the institutionalization of community policing to detect and sanction offenders.
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