Care For People With Disabilities In A Developing Country

                                Care For People With Mental Disabilities In A Developing Country

I have chossen to carry out my research in the above topic, particularly focusing on the developing world because there is a growing problem of Mental disabilities there, both in Children and Adults. Here we see many cases of Mental illness. The idea behind this research is to answer the question of the current number of mentaly  ill in the population of the chossen Country , whether this population is rising, and if so, by how much and how fast.  The other question I hope to address is to find out how well these affected patients are getting medical treatment and care in general.

While looking at this problem, several questions confront me such as :

(a) How to Select the sample from the population  so that it can give us a clear picture of the overall          situation in the whole population / Universe.

(b) The next questions that arises is how much this research will cost .

(c)  Thirdly, I also have to consider the time it will take to gather my data.

(d) Fourthly, I have to decide on which method to use for this research by choosing between Survey         method, Direct Observational method, Ethnographic method and Interview Method, or even use a       combination of all where necessary.

(e) Another question that I see is how much we can gain in terms of savings of money, time and                 labour, by reading similar research  papers published before.

(f) Finally, I may have to try and gain more knowledge from the health practioners in this field in              order to understand the current state of medical advances made to-date.

Thus, my research targets the study of people as I want to see how well people with mental illness are taken care of in the developing Countries.

As concerns this research, am looking at several research methods that may prove usefull in answering my research question. Further, I propose to use mostly the Survey method and the Ethnographic method/ Approach. This is because through the Survey method I hope to find out how many families in my sample live with a person suffering from mental disability. Again I inted to use the Ethnographic approach to study the affected families inorder to gain in-depth information regarding  their experienceses.

These  methods also raise a few queries. Although I have chosen to use :- 

(a) The Survey methods, 

(b) Ethnographic method, and 

(c) The Direct Observational  method, 

am still not sure how I will implement the Direct Observational method, even though I think it is best suited to this context (studying the patients' daily lives). Am also not sure on whether to also use the Interview method when collecting information from the caregivers. My fear here is that by using this method I might not get truthful answers.

I see several challenges ahead of me concerning my research. These include :

The first challenge I foresee involves getting information regarding the correct numbers of families affected. This is because many Families tend to hide or conceal such problems out of, or due to, the fear of Social Stigma attached to this problem.

The second problem may involve gathering up-to-date information from the Government and its concerned departments, as well as, from medical facilities, the correct number of patients with mental problems in the country. Usually, we find that most Government Institutions in the developing Countries do not maintain proper and up to date records.

Next, is the difficulty of choosing the best sample area. Here, should I choose to study one city in the Country and hope that it will be representative of the whole universe?

Another challenge that faces me regards the time I should devote to this research due to financial and man-power constraints/ limitations.

As for the method or methods preferable, I still have to decide whether to go with the Direct Observational method and not the Interview method, or to use them both, together with the Survey method. And by using them together, will it make the work too heavy and also end up consuming more time? 

These then are the areas that I will be focusing on as I work on my research and I invite anybody to come forward and contribute towards my better understanding of this project.