This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Formative Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://formative.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
The undergraduate student population has been actively studied in digital mental health research. However, the existing literature primarily focuses on students from high-income nations, and undergraduates from limited-income nations remain understudied.
This study aims to identify the broader social determinants of mental health among undergraduate students in Bangladesh, a limited-income nation in South Asia; study the manifestation of these determinants in their day-to-day lives; and explore the feasibility of self-monitoring tools in helping them identify the specific factors or relationships that affect their mental health.
We conducted a 21-day study with 38 undergraduate students from 7 universities in Bangladesh. We conducted 2 semistructured interviews: one prestudy and one poststudy. During the 21-day study, participants used an Android app to self-report and self-monitor their mood after each phone conversation. The app prompted participants to report their mood after each phone conversation and provided graphs and charts so that the participants could independently review their mood and conversation patterns.
Our results show that academics, family, job and economic condition, romantic relationship, and religion are the major social determinants of mental health among undergraduate students in Bangladesh. Our app helped the participants pinpoint the specific issues related to these factors, as the participants could review the pattern of their moods and emotions from past conversation history. Although our app does not provide any explicit recommendation, the participants took certain steps on their own to improve their mental health (eg, reduced the frequency of communication with certain persons).
Although some of the factors (eg, academics) were reported in previous studies conducted in the Global North, this paper sheds light on some new issues (eg, extended family problems and religion) that are specific to the context of the Global South. Overall, the findings from this study would provide better insights for researchers to design better solutions to help the younger population from this part of the world.
Similar to many low-and middle-income countries [
Proposing a path forward for addressing mental health challenges in the Global South is still at a rudimentary stage of development [
Concerns over the mental health of university students have been expressed in the Global North for some time now [
These factors have already been identified as the social determinants of the mental health of students [
Through this work, we intend to explore the social determinants of mental health, particularly in the context of Bangladesh. In a country like Bangladesh, where social and family structures are hierarchical, traditional, and community based [
One potential way toward forwarding the research on identifying the factors that affect mental health can be the use of reflective tools [
In this work, we designed, developed, and deployed a mood-tracking Android app that could be used as a reflective tool to record and reflect on past interactions with social peers. We conducted 2 semistructured interviews with our participants—one before and one another after using the app to understand the impact of our app on their mental health. Our primary goal is to progress the research toward identifying the factors that affect the mental health of Bangladeshi undergraduate students. However, we do not make any causal claims about these factors; instead, we present the findings from our interviews that give insights into how certain factors manifest in the specific context of Bangladesh, as well as shed light on some new issues that were rarely discussed before. As a secondary goal of the study, we want to observe the effect of the self-monitoring tool and see whether our participants take any action to improve their mental health, despite no explicit recommendation provided by the app.
The study was conducted on 38 participants aged between 19 and 27 years. At the time of the study, all the participants were full-time undergraduate students. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling [
Our participants included 30 traditional and 8 nontraditional students (P1, P5, P24, P25, P26, P30, and P35). In Bangladesh, traditional students join university immediately after receiving their high school diploma, whereas most nontraditional students attend university after receiving 2-3 years of technical vocational training (eg, application of different computer software in official contexts) and a few years of job experience [
Information about the participantsa.
Participant | Gender | Age (years) | Institution | Student type |
P1 | Male | 25 | EUb | Nontraditional |
P2 | Male | 24 | EU | Traditional |
P3 | Male | 22 | EU | Traditional |
P4 | Female | 24 | EU | Traditional |
P5 | Male | 25 | EU | Nontraditional |
P6 | Female | 24 | EU | Traditional |
P7 | Female | 25 | EU | Traditional |
P8 | Male | 23 | BUETc | Traditional |
P9 | Male | 23 | BUET | Traditional |
P10 | Male | 24 | BUET | Traditional |
P11 | Male | 23 | BUET | Traditional |
P12 | Male | 23 | BUET | Traditional |
P13 | Male | 23 | BUET | Traditional |
P14 | Male | 24 | BUET | Traditional |
P15 | Female | 23 | BUET | Traditional |
P16 | Female | 23 | BUET | Traditional |
P17 | Female | 23 | BUET | Traditional |
P18 | Female | 20 | BUET | Traditional |
P19 | Male | 23 | BUET | Traditional |
P20 | Female | 22 | RUd | Traditional |
P21 | Male | 22 | DCe | Traditional |
P22 | Male | 21 | DC | Traditional |
P23 | Male | 22 | DC | Traditional |
P24 | Female | 24 | EU | Nontraditional |
P25 | Male | 27 | EU | Nontraditional |
P26 | Male | 20 | EU | Nontraditional |
P27 | Female | 22 | CCf | Traditional |
P28 | Male | 19 | RU | Traditional |
P29 | Male | 20 | RU | Traditional |
P30 | Male | 25 | BUBTg | Nontraditional |
P31 | Female | 19 | TMCh | Traditional |
P32 | Female | 19 | TMC | Traditional |
P33 | Female | 19 | TMC | Traditional |
P34 | Female | 19 | TMC | Traditional |
P35 | Male | 26 | EU | Nontraditional |
P36 | Female | 23 | EU | Traditional |
P37 | Male | 23 | BUET | Traditional |
P38 | Female | 20 | TMC | Traditional |
aP36-P38 did not take part in exit interviews.
bEU: Eastern University.
cBUET: Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
dRU: Rajshahi University.
eDC: Dhaka College.
fCC: City College.
gBUBT: Bangladesh University of Business and Technology.
hTMC: Thengamara Mohila Sabuj Sangha Medical College.
We designed and developed
During this interview, we asked the participants about their general mental health and the reasons behind their mental stress, depression, or frustration; the frequency of experiencing mental health issues; the relationships that cause them; and their coping strategies. As English is the primary medium of instruction in their institutions, all of our participants were proficient in English. However, to collect spontaneous responses and have an in-depth discussion, we conducted the interviews in their native language Bengali, the official language of Bangladesh [
Interviews were conducted both in person and through the Zoom videoconferencing platform. All interviews were audio recorded with the consent of the interviewees. Interviewers ensured appropriate levels of empathy and rapport during the interviews. Time-outs were offered if the participants asked for them.
The average length of the interviews was 25 minutes (SD 13.76; SE of the mean 3.97).
After the baseline interview, participants were requested to use the HWC app for 3 weeks. Study personnel helped the participants install the app on their smartphones and instructed them on how to use it. We designed the app to run in the background and pop up a survey at the end of each phone call. The survey asked the participants to describe their mood by choosing from 8 emotions (
Interface for providing feedback after each call. HWC: How Was the Call?
In addition to the 8 emotions, we also provided the participants with a textbox to describe their feelings in more detail. Although we could have asked for more inputs from users (eg, how strong is the emotion?), our app asked for user input every time they made or received a call. Hence, asking for too many inputs from users after each phone call would require a high cognitive burden that might alter emotion and reduce long-term engagement [
Once the participants described their feelings, they had the option to view their data later. The participants could review their call history and see how they felt after each call (
Interfaces for analyzing call history and mood. HWC: How Was the Call?
The flow of the app is as follows:
The participant installs the app.
Every time the participant makes or receives a regular phone call, the app starts its operation.
After the call ends, the participant is prompted to provide feedback and choose from 8 options (
After providing the information, the participant can press Next. This stores the information in the local memory of the mobile phone, and the app terminates.
The participant can choose not to provide any information by pressing Skip. The app then terminates.
The participant checks the call history and reviews their emotional status after each conversation at any time (
Participants who were worried about their data being stored outside the phone (public server and database) or shared with a third party were ensured that their call history and mood descriptions would only be stored in their mobile phone memory, and they were even allowed to see the source code of the app. In fact, 2 participants who were familiar with Android app development requested to review our source code, and we allowed them to do so. We did not collect specific information about the number of calls received by each participant for privacy reasons.
Exit interviews were arranged after the participants had used the HWC app for 3 weeks. In these interviews, participants described their experience of using the app to track their moods. The questions were more specific in this session, where we asked them to highlight the major incidents that they had recorded over the past 3 weeks. We also asked them how the app had shaped their opinions and attitudes toward other people in their social circle. The setting of this interview was the same as that of the baseline interview. The average length of the interviews was 17 (SD 7.43, SE 3.03) minutes. Despite our best efforts, we could not reach 3 participants (P36-P38) in this session because of their unavailability, resulting in a data set of 35 (male: 21/35, 60%; female: 14/35, 40%) interviewees.
We first transcribed the audio recordings from both sets of interviews and then translated them into English. Next, we performed a thematic analysis of our data based on the Boyatzis framework for code development [
In this section, we first describe the findings of our baseline interviews by highlighting the factors that affect the mental health of our participants. Then, we report the impact of our app on helping participants monitor their mental health. Finally, we describe the measures that were taken by our participants to improve their mental health, although no recommendation was provided by the app.
Through our interviews, we identified 5 factors that affected our participants’ mental health the most.
Distribution of the factors that were reported by the study participants (n=35).
Factor | Participants, n (%) |
Academic performance | 27 (77) |
Family | 19 (54) |
Job and economic condition | 17 (49) |
Religion | 11 (31) |
Romantic relationships | 9 (26) |
Academic standing was the most discussed theme during the interviews. Of the 35 participants, 27 (77%) noted that academic performance had a major impact on their mental health. Their main concern was the stress and depression created by assignments, class tests, projects, and final exams. One participant said:
I feel depressed on the evening before my exams. I get very tensed and start to think too much about the upcoming exam. Often I feel uncertain whether I will be able to answer all the questions or not. Sometimes I am too confused and start to panic about my preparation. I call my classmates and ask them about their preparation. Although they tell me that they have not prepared very well either, I assume otherwise and get more depressed.
Another participant (P11) further added that he had been stressed because of his final-year academic thesis. Even during vacation, he had to work on his thesis. Other participants were more concerned about their academic grades. They thought that their results were not satisfactory, and they might struggle in the job market. As mentioned by another participant:
I get frustrated when I try to read in the evening. I think about my future career and feel that I am not doing enough. I have a poor CGPA, will anyone give me a job? At times, it seems that I am a complete failure, which makes me frustrated.
A similar sentiment was reflected in the response of P10. In his opinion, despite putting in his best efforts, he had not been able to achieve his desired grades, which resulted in mental depression and frustration. He said the following:
I have been getting poor grades in exams in consecutive semesters. Despite trying my best, I am not being able to improve my grades. It’s not that I’m not trying, but nothing seems to work.
Another participant (P17) expressed her concerns over academic deadlines. She felt that procrastination contributed to a decline in her mental health. She tended to start working at the 11th hour to complete her assignments; however, before that, she could not focus on anything else either, as she constantly kept reminding herself about the deadline. She felt that this sort of behavior put her in
Of the 35 participants, 19 (54%) mentioned family as a reason for the decline in their mental health. However, the underlying reasons varied significantly. As the participants were from different backgrounds in terms of social and economic status, their problems were also different in nature. For example, one participant (P1) said that he had lost his parents at the age of 15 years. As the eldest child, he had to pick up many responsibilities since then. Although he was quite happy to perform his responsibilities, he constantly felt that he had not been doing enough for a better upbringing of his younger brother. He said the following:
When my mother died, my younger brother was still a baby. We lost our father after a few years, so his only guardian now is me. I am always tense about his education. Sometimes my brother does not listen to what I say. Those times are very hard for me. Whenever he fails at anything, I feel genuinely frustrated.
The participants who were married (P5, P6, P7, and P24) talked about their spouses and in-laws when discussing mental issues. One male student (P5) with a full-time job said that he was always concerned about financial stability, as his wife did not have a job. Owing to his busy life, he missed many family events, and although the reasons were genuine, his in-laws felt that he did not give them enough attention. Of the 35 participants, the 3 (9%) recently married female participants (P6, P7, and P24) discussed at length about their relationships with in-laws and how this affected their mental health. In Bangladesh, it is a common practice for women to move to their husbands’ houses after the wedding. As extended families are still a cultural norm in Bangladesh [
I am currently having issues with my new family. It is not any particular person, but their overall attitude. I have to be careful about my every action because if they don’t like anything, they directly call my parents to complain about me. What hurts me more is that my own parents do not support me in this case. The relationship dynamic with my in-laws is perhaps the biggest cause of stress in my life currently.
Some other participants mentioned that as they were too busy with their academic life, they got stressed whenever they were burdened with any additional family responsibilities, including sending money and taking care of sick family members. Approximately 6% (2/35) of participants (P13 and P27) said that simply talking about family problems through the mobile phone was stressful for them.
Of the 35 participants, 5 (14%) participants (P1, P5, P25, P30, and P35—all nontraditional students) had full-time jobs during the study period, and all remarked that work-related issues affected their mental health. P5 talked about the competitive environment of his office—how everyone there was under huge pressure to perform and complete the tasks assigned to them. He said the following:
A full-time employee has a lot of responsibilities. You have pressure from your boss – pressure of meeting deadlines, pressure of performing better than your colleagues. Even at midnight, I receive calls from my boss. This makes me think that life without mobile phones would have been much better. At least your boss could not have reached you after office hours. [...] When I fail to meet a deadline, I get anxious. You fail, which means that you will have a lesser chance of being promoted and there are many other people waiting to grab that opportunity. I used to think competition exists only in colleges, but it is certainly more in professional life.
Some of our participants mentioned that their families were solvent, and they did not have an urgency to get internships or jobs. However, they still felt the pressure to look for a job, as their peers had been doing the same. One participant (P14) highlighted this issue as a major reason for the decline in his mental health. Some participants, on the other hand, got confused about their career choices. In Bangladesh, career counseling is not recognized as an important activity at universities [
I think about my future all the time. I am finding it really difficult to choose between two specific options: doing an MBA or preparing for job interviews. I try to consult my seniors, but even they do not have a clear career path for this program.
As mentioned before, of the 35 participants, 12 (34%) were from BUET, which is typically regarded as the most sought-after academic institution in the country. As a result, they had a high demand as instructors in local coaching centers [
Of the 35 participants, 11 (31%; all Muslims) discussed the role of religion in their mental health. One of them (P1) said that when he missed the Fajr prayer (the first of the 5 daily prayers performed by a practicing Muslim) at dawn for oversleeping, he did not feel well for the rest of the day. However, he eventually calmed himself by thinking that an unwillingly committed negligence would not be punished and a good act later in the day would compensate for the earlier remission. He further added the following:
I believe in Tawhid [the concept of monotheism in Islam], so I believe the whole universe has been created by our God. He has given us certain duties to perform, and sometimes when I fail to do any of those, I get a little bit stressed out. [...] I have another issue pertinent to religion. In a society, different types of religions coexist and I have certain expectations from the believers of other religions. At times, those expectations are not met and I face trouble in interacting with people from other religions, which bothers me a lot mentally.
P27, who also expressed similar sentiments, felt that each problem in life could not be shared with family. That is why he had turned to God with Whom he feels that every problem can be shared and discussed. However, all of these participants highlighted that they performed Salah (prayer) to seek happiness. In addition, P4 and P24 said that they regularly read the Quran (the main religious text of Islam) to relieve mental stress.
Of the 35 participants, 9 (26%) talked about their romantic relationships when discussing mental health. The 3 married participants, including P7, who was not happy with her in-laws, appreciated the support they received from their spouse in conjugal life. However, all of them confessed that they needed to think about their actions thoroughly, as those might affect their spouse. This constant pressure of remaining careful and alert creates a stressful family environment for them.
The unmarried participants (P9, P11, P13, P21, P28, and P31) described their past and present romantic relationships. One participant correlated his stress and frustration with his relationship with his partner:
I think my major source of stress and depression is my relationship with my girlfriend. We have been in the relationship for a while now, and I always try to make her happy in any way I can. Even then, I sometimes notice that the value of my opinion matters less very little in our relationship. Additionally, I have a tendency to compare my financial status with my girlfriend’s, which also makes me sad or in some cases, jealous.
Another participant (P9) pointed out a different aspect of relationships, saying that his ex-girlfriend had issues of emotional dependency and that he had to spend a significant amount of time throughout the day talking with her over the phone. He felt relieved to get out of the relationship as he was unable to cope with the habit of spending too much time on the phone. P11, who had recently broken up with his girlfriend, was visibly distressed because of the failed relationship. However, one participant (P13) attributed the supportive nature of his girlfriend to his sound mental health, saying that he always found his partner by his side when he was stressed.
Having described the factors affecting the mental health of our participants, we now highlight the effectiveness of our app in monitoring their mental health. Through our app, participants were able to track their own behavioral patterns by regularly recording their information. All of our participants agreed that the moods shown in the app represented the entire spectrum of their real-life emotions and made them more conscious about their mental health:
Each time I finish a call, the app asks me how I am feeling. This makes me think about my mental health for a few moments, which I would not have done previously. The app makes me more aware of my mental health.
Another participant (P2) liked the feature of reviewing the mood data. He reported that during the course of 3 weeks, he had periodically analyzed his mood report, and in doing so, he could identify some patterns. For example, he had realized that he felt more tense at night.
Our participants also mentioned that the app helped them in identifying the positive and negative influences in their lives. As a result of using the app, they were able to more consciously identify the positive influencers—persons with whom they are close in real life but never previously thought of as positive catalysts for the betterment of their mental health. For example, P5 acknowledged this revelation in the following way:
Through this app, I could identify those people who make me happy and I realized that even during face-to-face conversations, this same group of people makes me feel more comfortable. I could make this explicit connection by using this app.
Similarly, some participants noted that the use of the app was helpful in identifying persons who caused mental stress in their lives. Of the 35 participants, 2 (6%) participants (P6 and P26) mentioned that the emojis were quite helpful in this regard as they could properly categorize their mental state by using those emojis. They were able to identify the conversations that had a negative impact by looking at the emojis for
Some of our participants reported how the app assisted them in precisely identifying the reason for their mental stress. For example, during the baseline interview, P11 said that the final-year thesis had been his primary academic concern. By using the app, he was able to understand that his supervisor had been pushing him a lot for the thesis. After each phone call with his supervisor, he was either
One participant (P12) provided important feedback regarding the textbox feature for writing additional comments. He thought that the overall mood was not entirely dependent on the conversation, as it got affected by other factors (eg, weather or an upcoming exam). He particularly liked the option of having a textbox to be able to record the potential reasons behind certain emotions. In his opinion, the written comments were helpful to better understand the contexts when he reviewed them later.
As the use of the app enabled our participants to better identify the persons or events that had a negative impact on their mental health, they could also take some measures for improvement. About two-thirds (24/35, 69%) of our participants said that they had tried to change the frequency of contacting those people who were having a negative effect on their mental health:
The app helped me identify the people who were causing stress. As I checked the call patterns, I tried to understand why I was not feeling comfortable talking with them. What I did was – I tried to improve my relationship with them. Some attempts succeeded, while others did not. I have started avoiding those persons with whom I could not develop a better relationship.
Responses from P14 also revealed similar adjustments. By using the app, he realized that he had been in touch with some friends who were detrimental to his mental health as phone conversations with them were making him
After I found out who those friends were, whenever I met them I explicitly tried to show that I am not interested in talking with them. I deliberately made the conversations shorter and removed the friendly approach from my tone.
However, our participants also mentioned that it is impossible to avoid certain persons in academic or professional lives (eg, supervisors and managers), and they had to pick up phone calls from those persons or call them for important academic or professional reasons. At times, they also had to pick up specific calls for courtesy and modesty. Some participants mentioned that the app had been helpful in these cases as based on previous mood patterns recorded through the app; they were mentally prepared for certain conversations to have a potential negative impact on their mental condition:
In my office, I often need to contact many colleagues and those conversations can’t be avoided. But now the app has let me know that after some of those conversations, I’ll not feel cheerful. As I know this beforehand, the impact is less severe.
One participant (P1) said that the app helped him control his temper. He talked about a particular relative who used to call at inappropriate times for mundane conversations. As P1 felt
I have a large family with many sisters. As I am under huge academic pressure, I cannot contact them as frequently as I would like to. But after using the app, I found that my stress relieves a lot when I share my problems with my sisters. They give wonderful advice, too. I have decided to communicate more frequently with them.
The app also seemed to have a positive impact on the relationship status of a participant (P13). Although P13 had a stable and healthy relationship and used to share his problems with his girlfriend even before using the app, he noted that the app reinforced the same notion about the relationship, as he often felt
Our baseline interviews identified several factors that affect the mental health of students in Bangladesh. Our findings demonstrate some differences between Western countries and Global South countries such as Bangladesh with regard to social determinants of mental health of the young, college-going population. Although some of the factors (eg, academic performance [
Female students who go for higher education need to overcome the barriers created by the local society [
Religion has been an integral part of the social, political, and economic environments of Bangladesh [
Although economic conditions have been a factor discussed in previous studies, the context of Bangladesh is somewhat different. In the local society, a male is expected to support his parents and, in some cases, the extended family. Therefore, students at the undergraduate level, especially male students, start worrying about their financial status. Families also start sharing financial problems with them, indicating that the students now need to contribute to their families. For example, P11 and P13 felt stressed and frustrated when they failed to send enough money to their homes. However, we did not get such reports of stress over the family’s economic status from any of our female participants.
Apart from traditional students, we also had 23% (8/35) nontraditional students (female: 1/8, 13%; male: 7/8, 87%) in our study. Like regular students, they mentioned issues about coursework and exams, but all of them pointed out other issues as well. Of the 8 nontraditional students, 4 (50%) were married; therefore, these participants mentioned their struggle to measure up to their in-laws. Even the male married student (P5) talked about how his inability to attend family functions made his in-laws unhappy. Of the 35 participants, 5 (14%) male participants (P1, P5, P25, P30, and P35) explained their job life in detail and expressed that they found it very difficult to manage a full-time job with academic life. Their conversations (particularly that of P25) hinted that they were expected to do a full-time job as they were getting old; however, at the same time, they had to be serious about their academic coursework, as not having a bachelor’s degree hindered their progress in job life.
The most commonly appreciated theme regarding our app was its ability to help users observe their mental states. In the baseline interviews, many of our participants had rough ideas about the main factors affecting their mental health; however, using the app for 3 weeks helped them pinpoint the exact reason. During this period, our participants constantly put their emotions after each call. As our app provided visual analysis of call history through graphs and pie charts, they could interpret those in their own way. Our participants were able to notice which calls evoked negative sentiments and acted accordingly. For example, the app helped several participants identify that academic supervisors or some specific family members were the reason for their stress. Conversely, the app also helped them identify the relationships that had a positive impact on their mental health. One participant further discovered the temporal aspect of mental health by using the app.
Similar to other reflective tools [
Although the app was used only by Bangladeshi students in our study, apps such as these can be used in a universal context. In our study, students could identify the factors causing a negative impact on their mental health. These factors may be different in the context of people from other cultures; however, everyone can realize their own factors by using the app for a prolonged period. Even in our study, the participants reported a range of factors using the same app. We believe that this app can be considered as a variant of a digital diary [
After identifying some of the potential factors, the participants in our study took some measures to improve their mental health. These measures were not suggested or recommended by our app; rather, they were taken by the participants on their own. For example, 24 students reported that they changed the frequency of contacting the people whom they found to have a negative impact on their lives. Among these participants, some tried adjusting their stressful relationships, whereas others started avoiding interactions altogether. In cases where avoiding a person was not a feasible option because of professional reasons (eg, colleagues or supervisors), the app helped the participants prepare themselves mentally for a potential negative conversation.
It should also be noted that the app cannot address all the cultural or social aspects of human life. For example, our mobile app cannot directly assist female students regarding the challenges they face in their day-to-day lives. Treating women as inferior or violence against them are deeply rooted social problems, and no mobile app can solve these issues immediately [
Our paper does not make any causal claims about the social determinants of mental health (eg, we do not make claims that marriage causes mental frustration to young women). We only describe the findings of our interviews, and the factors we reported may not be causally related to mental health. Other hidden, unmeasured variables may play a role. However, we believe our reported factors will pave the way for future work that will dive deeply into investigating the underlying mechanisms of mental health, particularly the ones that came up for the first time in this study. We believe that follow-up work can then inform the theories of the mechanism of mental health. These theories can then be verified with actual field experiments to quantitatively find causal relationships.
Although we included students from 7 universities that offer different standards of education, future work should interact with students from even more diverse backgrounds. Our participants predominantly lived in 2 major cities, and students from universities in semiurban or rural areas might face other factors that have not been identified in this study. It would also be interesting to observe how this different demographic group struggles with the factors reported in this study and whether their perceptions about using a mobile app to monitor mental health would be any different.
Finally, there is a growing tendency among students to use social media platforms, such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, or Emo, for having longer conversations. As the internet has started reaching even the most remote parts of the country [
In this work, we aimed to progress the research toward identifying the social determinants of mental health among undergraduate students in Bangladesh. We designed and deployed an Android app among our participants to help them record and later reflect on the mobile phone conversations with their friends, family members, and academic or professional correspondences. Our app assisted the participants in pinpointing the exact relationship or factor that had a detrimental effect on their mental health. Although some of these factors have been reported in previous studies conducted in the Western context, we identified several new factors, including religion and extended family affairs, which are pertinent to the society of Bangladesh. Although our app does not provide any recommendations from its side, some participants took independent measures to improve their mental health. However, in some cases (eg, extended family problems), despite identifying the problem, participants could not find an appropriate solution; however, they could better prepare themselves to cope with that specific issue. Taken together, our study provides useful perspectives on and insights into the mental health of undergraduate students in Bangladesh, and we hope our findings can help researchers design better solutions to improve the mental health of the younger population from this part of the world.
Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
How Was the Call?
The project was supported by a Discovery Grant, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, under grant number RGPIN-2018-0. The authors would like to thank Abdul Kawser Tushar (University of Toronto), Eftekher Ahmed (Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology), Mainul Islam (Verizon Media), and Md Sabir Hossain (Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology) for their contributions to the development of the app.
None declared.