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With the rising rates of depression and suicidality among university students, accurate measures of depression have become an essential public health matter. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is one of the measures often used to estimate and compare group depression prevalence rates. In this study we examined the factor structure, measurement invariance (country and gender), and reliability of the PHQ-9 in a sample of university students (N = 1064; Mage = 22.67 yrs., SD = 5.17; 61% = Female) from three African countries (South Africa, Kenya, Ghana). Four alternative factor structures of the PHQ-9 (i.e., one-factor and three correlated two-factor models) were tested with confirmatory factor analysis. Results supported the two-factor model (somatic and non-somatic factors), and the measure was invariant across gender and the three African countries. The findings suggest that the PHQ-9 may be suitable for estimating and comparing depression prevalence across groups of African university students., Author(s): Malose Makhubela [sup.1] , Itumeleng P. Khumalo [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.411732.2, 0000 0001 2105 2799, Department of Psychology, University of Limpopo, , M-Block 1018, University Road, 0727, Polokwane, [...]

Valid psychological measures of stress are essential for the detection, management and prevention of stress and related mental illnesses. In this study the factorial structure, measurement invariance (gender and race), and reliability of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) were evaluated in a sample of university students (N = 862). Five competing measurement models of the PSS-10 (i.e., one-factor; correlated two-factor; bifactor with two domain specific factors; a bifactor, with the perceived self-efficacy factor; and a bifactor model, with the distress factor) were examined using confirmatory factor analysis and cross-validated using Rasch analysis. The two-factor model prevailed over the alternative latent structures, was invariant across gender and race groups, and had acceptable internal consistency reliability. This study supports the validity of the PSS-10 for use with diverse student populations., Author(s): Malose Makhubela [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.412988.e, 0000 0001 0109 131X, Department of Psychology, University of Johannesburg, , Johannesburg, South Africa Introduction > South Africa has recently seen a [...]

The problem of the South African university, and society in the same breath, is not so much that of governance or politics but ideology. The deepening realisation of the farcicality and impossibility of strategies, attendant ideologies and "master signifiers" of transformation (such as diversity, multiculturalism and rainbow nation) of the South African society and (whatever remains of) its institutions has never been more acute than now, when the insistence at meaningful change and the unanimous rejection, mostly by blacks, of the university (at least in its current form) have gained traction. This paper draws on Žižek's Lacanian theory of ideology to provide a counter-narrative and reading of official transformation consensus and ideologies like diversity, by highlighting their ethical liminalities. The underside of diversity's official claims to equality and justice are unmasked, and the terror and ironies of this liberal ideology are exposed, especially its refusal to recognise that whiteness (as a system) and justice can never coexist or inhabit the same space. Transformation discourse, of our kind, fashioned under diversity's register can never escape being appropriated by liberal ideology and practice, as yet another means to reaffirm its priorities.

Network theory promises new ways for conceptualizing, methods for investigating, and state-of-the-art lines of research that will improve our knowledge of mental health in high-risk children and adolescents. This study constructed a symptom network to examine associations between a wide range of trauma symptoms in a sample of children and adolescents (N = 270; M age = 12.55 yrs, SD = 1.19; 67% = Female) who experienced different forms of abuse (i.e., sexual, physical, emotional and neglect). Symptom-pairs regularized partial correlations, with the Extended Bayesian Information Criterion Graphical Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (EBICglasso), were computed to estimate the network structure and centrality measures of the TSCC-SF items. Results show sadness, dissociative amnesia, and sexual arousal to be the most central symptoms in the network, while suicidality was found to be the shortest pathway across all other symptoms (domains). By providing clinicians with specific symptoms to target in interventions, the network framework has the potential to guide and enhance the effectiveness of psychological therapies in high-risk populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depression in university students is known to commonly co-occur with other mental disorders, especially anxiety. It is, however, not known how this comorbidity affects the psychopathology of depression in university students. Compared to commonly used methods, the clinical network approach provides a better framework for understanding comorbidity. Accordingly, regularized partial correlation network models were used in this study to (1) examine the severity structure of individual depressive symptoms by the level of comorbid anxiety, and (2) explore the gender differences among these symptoms in university students (N = 919; M age = 21 years., SD = 2.99; 72% = Female). Anhedonia, hopelessness, worthlessness, self-blame, and loneliness were the most central symptoms of depression in this study. The Network Comparison Test revealed no statistically significant global structure and strength of the depressive symptom network by comorbid anxiety level and gender. Implications of the results and network framework with regard to developing alternative treatment options, and the optimization of clinical care and assessment of depression are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of the South African university, and society in the same breath, is not so much that of governance or politics but ideology. The deepening realisation of the farcicality and impossibility of strategies, attendant ideologies and "master signifiers" of transformation (such as diversity, multiculturalism and rainbow nation) of the South African society and (whatever remains of) its institutions has never been more acute than now, when the insistence at meaningful change and the unanimous rejection, mostly by blacks, of the university (at least in its current form) have gained traction. This paper draws on Žižek's Lacanian theory of ideology to provide a counter-narrative and reading of official transformation consensus and ideologies like diversity, by highlighting their ethical liminalities. The underside of diversity's official claims to equality and justice are unmasked, and the terror and ironies of this liberal ideology are exposed, especially its refusal to recognise that whiteness (as a system) and justice can never coexist or inhabit the same space. Transformation discourse, of our kind, fashioned under diversity's register can never escape being appropriated by liberal ideology and practice, as yet another means to reaffirm its priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study the factor structure of the Death Obsession Scale (DOS) was examined using confirmatory factor analysis. Data used consisted of DOS reports of 328 Black African students. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that two- and three-factor models obtained among female and male African students, respectively, provided the best fit to the data. The two factors in female African students were Death Rumination and Apprehension, and the three factors of their male counterparts were Death Ruminations, Apprehension, and Comprehensibility of Death. Factor intercorrelations did not resolve the dimensionality issue of the measure, leading to the conclusion that the factors must be investigated further. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Despite the availability of Q methodology as a qualitative research alternative that seemingly circumvents the limits of standard qualitative methods across various fields, a recent review of qualitative research literature in leading health-related South African journals indicated that Q methodology is hardly a method of choice in South Africa., Aim: This article demonstrates the application of Q methodology, a qualitative research option, in psychological research. The methodology is suitably designed to investigate and clarify diverse subjective experiences, attitudes, opinions and/or beliefs held by a group of people on a given topic., Methodology: A study on the subjective understandings and perceptions of epilepsy is used to illustrate how Q methodology works. In this particular study, a diverse group of participants, comprising students, traditional healers, doctors, nurses, pastors, high school teachers, laypeople domiciled in rural and urban areas, and speakers of two of the dominant African dialects in the area, was used., Results: Analysis produced three distinctive factors that are appositely named the scientific, the moderated traditionalist and the community-oriented stances. Each factor, constituted on the basis of close resemblance and statistical association between the rank orderings, represents an identifiable understanding of epilepsy by an exclusive grouping of participants., Conclusion: Concluding remarks about Q methodology are provided., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article., (© 2020. The Authors.)