Physico-Social Support Needs for Inclusion in an Instructional Package for Family Management of Mild Mentally Challenged Persons in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

Abstract

The main purpose of this study was to determine the physico-social support needs for inclusion in instructional package for family management of mild mentally challenged persons in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. Two specific purposes guided the study. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The target population of the study was 81 experts (24 psychiatric doctors, 35 psychiatric nurses, 6 psychologists, 2
family sociologists and 14 mild mentally challenged instructors), from which the
sample size of 63 experts was determined using a research advisor table and selected using a multistage sampling procedure. A structured questionnaire titled Physico-social Support Needs for Family Management of Mild Mentally Challenged Persons Questionnaire (PSNFMMMCPQ) was used for data collection. The instrument was face-validated by five experts and had a reliability coefficient of 0.91 using Cronbach Alpha statistics. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions. Findings revealed that experts approved the inclusion of all the specific physical support (3.03±0.68) and social support (3.12±0.70) tasks in the physico-social support instructional package for family management of mild mentally challenged persons. The study concluded that a functional instructional package must have specific support tasks in physical (such as brushing teeth daily) and social (such as regular interaction with peers) domains tailored to meet the needs of MMCPs. Based on the findings, it was recommended that instructional package developers should ensure that specific tasks of physical and social support needs are included in the
instructional package for family management of mild mentally challenged people.