Barriers to academic reintegration in students with severe mental disorders: Thematic analysis

Education provides a platform to persons to integrate into society for their livelihood. In countries like India, higher education is accorded a significant place in society and is an important pre-requisite for most professional and skilled occupations. However there are a number of illness related and psychosocial barriers to attaining educational goals, especially for persons with Severe Mental Disorders (SMDs'). The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand the bio-psychosocial barriers of students with severe mental disorders to academic reintegration.

Qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with Mental Health Professionals (MHP's) (n = 8), Lecturers (n = 9) and Students with SMD's (n = 14). The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and coded into themes and sub-themes separately for each group manually. Triangulation of the themes derived data collected from the three groups were subject to thematic content analysis.

A total of five barriers (themes) to academic reintegration were derived from triangulated data: 1. Illness and its treatment-related barriers, 2. Individual related barriers, 3. Family-related barriers, 4. Academic-related barriers and 5. Social barriers.

It is important for mental health professionals and researcher in the field to understand the above barriers in order to plan and implement supported education programmes effectively and enable the students to attain their post-secondary educational goals.