School of Human and Community Development (ETDs)

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Browsing School of Human and Community Development (ETDs) by Author "Besharati, Sahba"

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    A Systematic Review Examining the use of Neurofeedback as an Intervention in the Management of Burnout
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024-05-30) Patron, Daniella; Besharati, Sahba; Beukes, Johanna
    Background: Burnout is highly prevalent and has a long-lasting impact on health and well-being. However, a lack of formal diagnosis and standardised definition criteria has resulted in vague measurement standards and uncertainty regarding appropriate interventions. Neurofeedback training has shown the potential to modulate patterns of stress and produce long -lasting changes in the brain. However, the efficacy of neurofeedback training and its application to burnout is still in question. Work related stress is highly prevalent and has a serious and long-lasting impact on health and well-being. One ‘occupational phenomenon’ known as burnout has affected people in a multitude of professions and across a variety of societal domains. However, burnout is not currently recognised as a formal diagnosis and has no universally applied definition criteria. Aim: This systematic review aimed to determine if neurofeedback training is an appropriate intervention for the management of burnout. The secondary aim of the study was to evaluate the methodological, procedures and practical standards by which the neurofeedback training intervention was implemented as well as how the various burnout measures and populations were represented. Methods: This review (pre-registered on PROSPERO CRD42023448860) adhered to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA). Six databases (Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, ProQuest, PsycINFO and Ebscohost) and one search engine (Google Scholar) were searched according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Exclusion criteria: unpublished material, studies published before 2003, published in languages other than English, comorbidities with other disorders, use of other EEG interventions, no mention of burnout characteristics. Findings: The search strategy yielded a total of N = 6 studies included in the final review. Study results showed neurofeedback training improved negative characteristics associated with burnout, especially when combined with other intervention methods. However, vag ueness and omission were found in most study designs and intervention protocols with inconsistent burnout measures and sampling bias. Conclusion: In conclusion, neurofeedback training has shown the potential for managing certain burnout characteristics. However, due to the inconsistent study designs and vague methodological protocols, it remains uncertain whether it is entirely effective as an intervention for burnout. Thus, there is a need for more studies to be conducted in this area with the employment of stringent and standardised study designs, clearer reporting of methodological protocols, universally applied burnout definitions and regulated measures, more ethnically diverse samples, and a focus on more representative populations from diverse domains other than adults in healthcare professions
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    Automatic Racial Assumptions: Investigating the Relationship Between Implicit Racial Bias and Experiences of Affective Reactions to Racialized Others in a South African Population
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-08) Gomes, Stash Briano; Besharati, Sahba
    Background: There is evidence to suggest that one’s social context is critical in shaping the automatic affective responses that one has to their own and other racial groups. However, to date, research into explicit and implicit racial biases has largely investigated this phenomenon in predominantly White populations within the global North. Furthermore, while there is evidence to suggest that people possess a tacit awareness of their implicit racial biases, a study is yet to demonstrate a direct link between self-reported experiences of one’s own biases and implicit measures of bias. This may be due problems inherit with existing self-report measures of bias, which focus on beliefs and attitudes regarding race, rather than asking individuals to reflect on their own affective experiences regarding their interactions with people of their own and other races. Aims and Methods: Using an ex post facto correlational design, this study investigated the relationship between implicit racial bias, explicit affective responses to racial groups and consciously held beliefs and attitudes about racial groups, and whether there were any between-group differences across any of these variables within a sample of self-identified Black (N = 25) and White (N = 20) South African adults. Data was collected using an adapted version of the Racial Implicit Association Test (IAT) for use in the South African context and a novel self-report scale that measures both explicit Attitudinal and Affective Racial Bias (AARB), with both measures investigating White- and Black-directed racial biases. Results and Discussion: This study demonstrates significant between-group differences in explicit, but not implicit, measures of racial bias based on self-identified race in this sample. Providing evidence for the distinction between attitudinal and affective forms of explicit racial bias and suggesting that the direct comparison between biases directed towards Black and White racial groups may not be appropriate in diverse settings, given that there is only a relationship between these two forms of racial bias with the White identified participants, but no direct relationship between these biases were found within the sample of Black identified participants. Finally, the results of this study suggest that self-report measures of affective racial bias may demonstrate a stronger correlation with implicit biases as measure by the IAT than traditional measures of attitudinal bias.
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    Breaking the Chains of Intergenerational Childhood Poverty: A Narrative Retrospective Study of Resilience
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Wong , Caitlyn; Jithoo, Vinitha; Besharati, Sahba
    The experience of poverty is well-documented, however, there is a notable gap in the existing research concerning the unique narratives of university students who have undergone experiences of poverty during childhood. These students have been successful in gaining admission into university despite facing major financial hardships stemming from their experiences of intergenerational childhood poverty. These university students identified with having experiences of childhood poverty as well as resilience, thus becoming an important and under-researched sample. This qualitative study aims to explore these students’ narratives of childhood impoverishment, with an emphasis on the identification and understanding of resilience within these experiences. This topic was investigated through the utilisation of the resilience theoretical framework. The study employed a Narrative Analysis (NA) to assess the experiential and retrospective narrative accounts of emerging adults within the university student demographic using semi-structured interviews. Three overarching themes were identified: (1) narratives within the living environment; (2) the nexus of poverty, education, and opportunity; and (3) participants’ constructions of resilience. The results illustrated that the narrative experience of childhood poverty contained great levels of experienced difficulties within the home and schooling environment, and with emotional implications of poverty resulting in difficulties with coping and social exclusion. However among this plethora of hardship, participants constructions of resilience related to motivation, strength, acceptance, adaptation, and rewriting the narrative towards positive meaning-making. Therefore this study provided further subjective insight into the topic of poverty and resilience by way of presenting the data as experienced by the research participants, as well as having made recommendations for future research.
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    Exploring the pandemic: COVID-19 lockdown response levels as predictor of working memory performance and associated emotional responses
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-11) Oyejide, Aderemi Oyewunmi; Brooks, Samantha; Besharati, Sahba
    The unprecedented outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has altered the course of many lives, resulting in multiple health and social challenges. Due to the speed with which this andemic spread, various public health ‘lockdown’ measures were introduced to mitigate its spread. The outcome of adherence to these measures has revealed the possible influence on ndividuals varying cognitive abilities. Therefore, this study aimed at exploring the predicting relationship between lockdown responses to COVID-19 restrictions and working memory performance and associated emotional responses, while looking at the socio-demographic influences of age, gender, and level of education. Participants were drawn from a secondary dataset of an international online survey study of 1634 individuals between 18 – 75 years across 49 countries. Participants’ demographic questionnaires, working memory measures (free memory recall and digit span forward tasks), and hospital anxiety and depression scale were employed to collect data for analysis. A 4-way MANOVA and hierarchical multiple regression were utilised to explore the mean differences and predicting relationships between the study variables respectively. Significant differences were found in general memory performance, anxiety and depression scores across lockdown groups, but with no significant difference in working memory. The regression analysis indicated socio-demographic variables as non-predictive markers between lockdown responses and memory performance, while age and gender were significant predictors between lockdown responses and anxiety. The current study provides valuable information for interventions that may improve peoples’ psychological appraisals in preparation for any new potential waves or future pandemics.
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    The exploration of self-perception in the educational attainment of high achieving students from a low socioeconomic background in South African
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-06) Sebele, Phemelo Berveley; Besharati, Sahba
    Background: The achievement gap between students’ from lower-and-higher socioeconomic backgrounds is a global challenge that continues to widen. Education inequalities persist more widely with students from low socioeconomic backgrounds who are more likely to drop out of compulsory high school. However, individual characteristic such as resilience, growth-mind and positive self-concept – though largely studied using survey based methods - have been found to lessen the achievement gap. Yet, the influence of such psychological factors, specifically, self-perception as an overarching concept, is poorly understood, especially in low-to-middle income contexts like South Africa. Aim: This study aimed to understand the lived experiences and processes involved in self-perception of high-achieving first year university students from a low-socio-economic background in the low-to-middle income context of South Africa. Methods: An ecological systems theory and phenomenological approach guided this study. Semi-structured interviews, incorporating retrospective (high school) and current (university) questions, were conducted with 12 first-year university students. Findings: The research demonstrated that the lived experiences of self-perception in high achieving students’ that come from a low SES background are both individualised and similar. The findings revealed that validation which was distributed between internal (self-belief) and external (affirmations from external sources) played a significant role in the students’ academic success. Furthermore, the data also demonstrated that the perception of intelligence is largely influenced by what the students’ observe from their different environments. Conclusion: This study adds to our understanding of the role of self-perception in educational inequality which can be used in future school-based, family and wider policy interventions. It further demonstrates the need to understand these complex relationships by drawing on lived experience of students using qualitative approaches.