Influence of Community Education Programmes on Awareness Creation and Prevention of Mental Health Challenges among Women in Etche Ethnic Nationality of Rivers State

This study examined the influence of community education programmes on awareness creation and prevention of mental health challenges among women in Etche Ethnic Nationality of Rivers State. Three research questions and three null hypotheses were formulated and tested at the 0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised 1,200 respondents, made up of 1,163 members of fifteen registered community-based women organisations and 37 health workers in Etche and Omuma Local Government Areas of Rivers State. The sample size for the study was 299 respondents (262 members of community-based women organisations and 37 health workers) determined by using Krejcie and Morgan table of sample size determination. The instrument for data collection was a researcher-designed questionnaire which was subjected to face and content validation. Internal consistency was determined using the Cronbach Alpha method, and reliability coefficients of 0.86, 0.92 and 0.91 were obtained for the three sections of the instrument respectively. This shows that the instrument is reliable for the study. Data were analysed using mean and standard deviation, while the hypotheses were tested using z-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. The null hypotheses were rejected and the alternative hypotheses accepted if the computed value was greater than the critical table value at the significance level of 0.05, while the null hypotheses were accepted and the alternative hypotheses rejected if the computed value was less than the critical table value. The results revealed that mental health literacy workshops, stigma reduction campaigns, and stress management and coping skills programmes promote prevention of mental health challenges among women to a high or very high extent, and that there were no significant differences in the mean responses of members of community-based women organisations and health workers. The study recommended that government and health agencies, community leaders, and health institutions regularly organise mental health literacy workshops, intensify stigma reduction campaigns, and establish stress management and coping skills programmes for women in the study area.