Work Package 4 – Qualitative Research 

The purpose of this work package is to improve mental health infrastructure, especially for self-harm and suicide in Pakistan by exploring stakeholders’ perspectives about needs, gaps, social realities related to self-harm, and suicide in Pakistan.

Qualitative research can play an important role in developing appropriate health services and policies. This type of research provides valuable insights into the ways health; illness; patients’ and carers’ experiences are conceptualized as well as explore different aspects of care delivery. Moreover, qualitative research has the potential to inform the process of research itself. For example, these approaches can help to understand, why some of the patients decline to participate in research, or how the patients experience participation in the research.

Building on the extensive joint work of PILL and the University of Manchester on self-harm and suicide prevention (CMAP, Y-CMAP) and facilitated by our Theory of Change process, this work package will help to identify the core elements and/or help in policy development, adaptive treatment, prevention strategies and user-friendly toolkit for the wider community.

In-depth qualitative interviews will be conducted with individuals with a history of self-harm and their carers using a 1:1 semi-structured interview, to explore their lived experiences. We will also carry out these in-depth interviews with other health professionals, medico-legal officers, police, and policymakers to identify the barriers/ challenges in working with people who self-harm and with people who bereaved by suicide.