Author(s)

Mburugu Beatrice¹, Mbutitia Francisca², Chepchieng Micah^3*, Kangethe Mary⁴, Ngugi Grace⁵, Kung’u Lucy⁶, Ngure Peter⁷, Raburu Pamela⁸, Avisa Hellen⁹, Gitau Susan¹⁰

¹Department of Education, Chuka University, Chuka, Kenya.
²Department of Educational Psychology, Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya.
³Department of Psychology, Counselling and Educational Foundations, Egerton University, Njoro, Kenya.
⁴Department of Education Programmes, Kenya National Commission for UNESCO, Nairobi, Kenya.
⁵Department of Special Programmes, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, Nairobi, Kenya.
⁶Counselling Center, United States International University-Africa (USIU), Nairobi, Kenya.
⁷Department of Health Sciences, St. Paul’s University, Limuru, Kenya.
⁸Department of Psychology and Educational Foundations, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Bondo, Kenya.
⁹Department of Education in Emergencies, Ministry of Education, Nairobi, Kenya.
¹⁰Department of Counselling Psychology, Africa Nazarene University, Nairobi, Kenya.

The COVID-19 pandemic was declared a public health emergency of international concern by the World Health Organization in January 30, 2020. COVID-19 affected more than 1.5 billion learners worldwide including 18 million in Kenya. As much as a lot has been done to control and manage the physical health effects posed by the pandemic globally, there has been little effort put on psychosocial and mental health support to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 pandemic, especially among school learners. As such, researchers in Kenya came up with psychosocial and mental health (PSMH) interventions that were offered to learners to mitigate the PSMH effects of COVID-19. Since learners affected by PSMH issues, rely on schools for their PSMH wellbeing and development, the intervention was offered to selected learners that met intervention threshold for period of two months in their respective schools. In order to build a strong evidence of efficacy of the intervention, the study carried out an outcome evaluation which is primarily target-audience oriented. This is where the effects of the intervention on learners’ PSMH wellbeing were measured. Mass outbreaks such as pandemics are associated with adverse PSMH problems requiring efficacious psychological interventions, thus the need for this study. The findings revealed statistically significant differences in PSMH scores between learners as per counties and category of schools. No difference was noted with gender. There is therefore need to mainstream PSMH programmes in educational institutions in the country.

COVID-19 Pandemic, Efficacy, Evaluate, Intervention, Learners, Mental Health, Psychosocial

Beatrice, M. , Francisca, M. , Micah, C. , Mary, K. , Grace, N. , Lucy, K. , Peter, N. , Pamela, R. , Hellen, A. and Susan, G. (2023) Efficacy of Psychosocial and Mental Health Interventions to Mitigating the Effect of COVID-19 among Learners in Kenya. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 11, 319-331. doi: 10.4236/jss.2023.117022.