Study aims:

To find out:

  1. Whether it is possible to compare the new faith-based programme with a typical mental health programme (such as that offered by the NHS).
  2. How well our plans and ways of collecting information work, what helps young Muslim women get involved, and what their experiences of taking part are.

To establish the feasibility of evaluating a faith-based culturally adapted intervention to promote and improve mental health and well-being of young Muslim women in community settings.

The objectives are:

  • Deliver and evaluate the IM-Adapted group intervention compared with usual psychoeducation
  • Identify the most effective methods to recruit and randomise participants
  • Examine the feasibility of delivering the interventions in community settings
  • Explore implementation and fidelity to the intervention protocol
  • Determine the acceptability of the interventions, study procedures and barriers to engagement
  • Estimate adherence rates to the intervention by participants
  • Explore the feasibility of collecting outcome and resource data
  • Estimate referrals, recruitment and retention rates
  • Evaluate the safety of the trial
  • Estimate sample size for a future definitive trial

  • Young Muslim women aged 18-24 who are living with low mood or depression and are from communities in Birmingham and London.

Those who take part in the study will be in the study for 6 months. Participants will be randomly allocated to one of the two programmes:

  1. The Faith-Based Intervention: faith-based group therapy sessions that have been specially developed to reflect the Muslim faith and culture.

Or

  1. Usual Psychoeducation Group Support: standard therapy sessions (like that provided by the National Health Service)

Each group will receive a 90-minute group session once a week for 6 weeks in a group of around 10 other young Muslim women. All sessions will be delivered by specialist intervention therapists and a co-facilitated by Mental health support workers (MHSW). The sessions will take place in a mosque or community centre.

Participants will also be asked to complete an online questionnaire about depression, anxiety, wellbeing, quality of life, religious coping, and service use before their first session, at the end of their 6-week programme and 24 weeks after they join the study.

At the end of the study, participants will be invited to an optional interview or focus group to help us explore their views on the interventions, study design and processes.

What are the benefits?

  • Taking part in the sessions may improve low mood, anxiety and increase quality of life and develop a better understanding of self-help techniques to manage low mood and anxiety.
  • An improvement in understanding and familiarity with mental health and wellbeing services.
  • In the long-term it might help improve access and greater reach of culturally adapted therapy and engagement of service users who previously might not have been referred.

What are the risks?

  • Discussing personal things such as mental health can be difficult for some people.
  • If participants become distressed during the intervention sessions, they can step outside or stay after the session and one of the mental health practitioners will come and check in with them.

This feasibility study is expected to run from March 2024 to February 2026.

This study is funded by the NIHR Public Health Research (NIHR 156425 ). The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care.

Sponsored by

Research Partners