IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/114397.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Cognitive behavioral therapy among Ghana’s rural poor is effective regardless of baseline mental distress

Author

Listed:
  • Barker, Nathan
  • Bryan, Gharad
  • Karlan, Dean
  • Ofori-Atta, Angela L.
  • Udry, Christopher

Abstract

We study the impact of group-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for individuals selected from the general population of poor households in rural Ghana (N = 7,227). Results from one to three months after the program show strong impacts on mental and perceived physical health, cognitive and socioemotional skills, and economic self-perceptions. These effects hold regardless of baseline mental distress. We argue that this is because CBT can improve well-being for a general population of poor individuals through two pathways: reducing vulnerability to deteriorating mental health and directly increasing cognitive capacity and socioemotional skills.

Suggested Citation

  • Barker, Nathan & Bryan, Gharad & Karlan, Dean & Ofori-Atta, Angela L. & Udry, Christopher, 2022. "Cognitive behavioral therapy among Ghana’s rural poor is effective regardless of baseline mental distress," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114397, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:114397
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/114397/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher Blattman & Julian C. Jamison & Margaret Sheridan, 2017. "Reducing Crime and Violence: Experimental Evidence from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Liberia," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1165-1206, April.
    2. James J. Heckman & Jora Stixrud & Sergio Urzua, 2006. "The Effects of Cognitive and Noncognitive Abilities on Labor Market Outcomes and Social Behavior," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(3), pages 411-482, July.
    3. Young, Alwyn, 2019. "Channeling Fisher: randomization tests and the statistical insignificance of seemingly significant experimental results," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 101401, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Sule Alan & Teodora Boneva & Seda Ertac, 2019. "Ever Failed, Try Again, Succeed Better: Results from a Randomized Educational Intervention on Grit," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1121-1162.
    5. Johannes Haushofer & Robert Mudida & Jeremy P. Shapiro, 2020. "The Comparative Impact of Cash Transfers and a Psychotherapy Program on Psychological and Economic Well-being," NBER Working Papers 28106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Alwyn Young, 2019. "Channeling Fisher: Randomization Tests and the Statistical Insignificance of Seemingly Significant Experimental Results," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 557-598.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Banerjee, R. & Blunch, N-H & Cassese, D. & Gupta, N. D. & Pin, P., 2024. "The Effectiveness of Teamwork for Student Academic Outcomes: Evidence from a Field Experiment," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2463, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Siddique, Abu & Islam, Asad & Mozumder, Tanvir Ahmed & Rahman, Tabassum & Shatil, Tanvir, 2022. "Forced Displacement, Mental Health, and Child Development: Evidence from the Rohingya Refugees," SocArXiv b4fc7, Center for Open Science.
    2. Amaral, Sofia & Dinarte-Diaz, Lelys & Dominguez, Patricio & Perez-Vincent, Santiago M., 2024. "Helping families help themselves: The (Un)intended impacts of a digital parenting program," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    3. Sule Alan & Ceren Baysan & Mert Gumren & Elif Kubilay, 2021. "Building Social Cohesion in Ethnically Mixed Schools: An Intervention on Perspective Taking," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(4), pages 2147-2194.
    4. Sule Alan & Ceren Baysan & Mert Gumren & Elif Kubilay, 2020. "Building Inter-Ethnic Cohesion in Schools: An Intervention on Perspective-Taking," Working Papers 2020-009, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    5. Dinarte, Lelys & Egaña del Sol, Pablo & Martínez, Claudia & Rojas Alvarado, Cindy Jacqueline, 2024. "When Emotion Regulation Matters: The Efficacy of Socio-Emotional Learning to Address School-Based Violence in Central America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 13448, Inter-American Development Bank.
    6. Sevim, Dilek & Baranov, Victoria & Bhalotra, Sonia & Maselko, Joanna & Biroli, Pietro, 2023. "Trajectories of Early Childhood Skill Development and Maternal Mental Health," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 674, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    7. Michael Vlassopoulos & Abu Siddique & Tabassum Rahman & Debayan Pakrashi & Asad Islam & Firoz Ahmed, 2024. "Improving Women's Mental Health during a Pandemic," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 422-455, April.
    8. Heinrich, Carolyn J. & Knowles, Matthew T., 2020. "A fine predicament: Conditioning, compliance and consequences in a labeled cash transfer program," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    9. Sevim, Dilek & Baranov, Victoria & Bhalotra, Sonia & Maselko, Joanna & Biroli, Pietro, 2023. "Trajectories of Early Childhood Skill Development and Maternal Mental Health," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1469, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    10. Dinarte Diaz, Lelys & Egana-delSol, Pablo & Martínez A., Claudia & Rojas A., Cindy, 2024. "When Emotion Regulation Matters: The Efficacy of Socio-Emotional Learning to Address School-Based Violence in Central America," IZA Discussion Papers 16831, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Lea Cassar & Mira Fischer & Vanessa Valero, 2022. "Keep Calm and Carry On: Immediate-vs. Six-Month Effects of Mindfulness Training on Academic Performance," CESifo Working Paper Series 10099, CESifo.
    12. Andreoni, James & Serra-Garcia, Marta, 2021. "Time inconsistent charitable giving," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    13. Johnsen, Åshild A. & Kvaløy, Ola, 2021. "Conspiracy against the public - An experiment on collusion11“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publ," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    14. Anand Acharya & Lynda Khalaf & Marcel Voia & Myra Yazbeck & David Wensley, 2021. "Severity of Illness and the Duration of Intensive Care," Working Papers 2021-003, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    15. Blesse, Sebastian & Diegmann, André, 2022. "The place-based effects of police stations on crime: Evidence from station closures," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    16. Islam, Asad & Kwon, Sungoh & Masood, Eema & Prakash, Nishith & Sabarwal, Shwetlena & Saraswat, Deepak, 2020. "When Goal-Setting Forges Ahead but Stops Short," GLO Discussion Paper Series 526, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    17. Henning Hermes & Philipp Lergetporer & Frauke Peter & Simon Wiederhold, 2021. "Application Barriers and the Socioeconomic Gap in Child Care Enrollment," CESifo Working Paper Series 9282, CESifo.
    18. Andreas Georgiadis & Liza Benny & Paul Dornan & Jere Behrman, 2021. "Maternal Undernutrition in Adolescence and Child Human Capital Development Over the Life Course: Evidence from an International Cohort Study," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(352), pages 942-968, October.
    19. Ellis, Jimmy R. & Gershenson, Seth, 2020. "Gender, peer advising, and college success," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    20. Aksoy, Cevat Giray & Poutvaara, Panu & Schikora, Felicitas, 2023. "First time around: Local conditions and multi-dimensional integration of refugees," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    mental health; poverty; cognitive behavioral therapy; scarcity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:114397. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.