One of the Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health’s PhD students and AMARI fellows has received an award for her 2017 publication titled “Street vending in South Africa: An entrepreneurial occupation” in the South African Journal of Occupational Therapy.
The above-mentioned publication has been named the best in the Early Career Award, Public Health & Rehabilitation Sciences category by the UCT Health Sciences Faculty Research Committee. Mrs Gamieldien received an amount of R10 000 for her research fund.
Fadia Gamieldien (centre) together with (from left) Dr Carrie Brooke-Sumner and her supervisors Prof Roshan Galvaan, Prof Katherine Sorsdahl and Prof Bronwyn Myers.
African Mental Health Research Initiative (AMARI) PhD fellow at the CPMH, Fadia Gamieldien, delivered her PhD protocol at the Valkenberg Education Centre on 4 September 2018.
An occupational therapist by profession, Fadia completed both her undergraduate (BSc in Occupational Therapy) and post graduate (Masters in Occupational Therapy) degrees at the University of Cape Town (UCT).
Her PhD is focusing on exploring recovery focused interventions for men with severe mental illness in South Africa.
Mental, neurological and substance use disorders contribute significantly to the global burden of disease. This has serious consequences for individuals, their families and communities. In South Africa there is inadequate mental healthcare provided across the levels of health care despite the deinstitutionalisation process. This treatment gap creates the opportunity to develop recovery focused interventions. Recovery has mostly been understood clinically where the emphasis is on the alleviation of symptoms. Reconceptualising recovery as a personal, nonlinear, cyclical journey with services across the continuum of care may allow service providers to offer recovery focused interventions.
Fadia’s study aims to understand the recovery needs of men with a severe mental illness so as to inform the development of a recovery-focused measure for use in the South African context.
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One of the Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health’s PhD students and AMARI fellows has received an award for her 2017 publication titled “Street vending in South Africa: An entrepreneurial occupation” in the South African Journal of Occupational Therapy.