Home Conflicts Resolution Through Family Therapy

Abstract

Family conflicts and violence cases in Kenya is on increase on daily basis. Most of these cases emanate from disagreement among the family members who suffer silently with their personal problems due to difficulties of accessing family therapy for assistance and resolution of disputes at homes. Kenya has about 100 psychiatrists and most of them are in major cities in the country (Meyer & Ndetei, 2015). Families residing in marginalized areas face difficulties of accessing the therapeutic services due to limited counseling centers and poverty. Marginalization is costly to both family therapy and the mental health field (Shields & McDaniel, 2007). This has led family members to take wrong actions like committing suicide, physical violence and among other serious problems in the society. Every forty seconds, an individual commit suicide (Word Health Organization, 2019). The application and integration of the information technologies into family therapy is still not fully implemented in the country despite the increased vices among families. Kenya’s health information system currently does not address particular conditions related to mental health and mental health interventions monitoring (Ministry of Health Kenya, 2020). The research focused on developing an integrated family therapy prototype to address timely access to family therapy by family members for conflict resolutions at homes. The prototype implementation involved integration of a Short Message Service (SMS) API for instant notification. Functional requirements were gathered and analyzed for the development of the prototype. The prototype was quantitatively evaluated using a usability test on 143 enthusiasts’ selected using systematic sampling in different areas within Nairobi. Family therapy prototype system usability analysis was done and users’ feedbacks collected. It was found that, 87% of the users of the prototype system were satisfied with acceptance of the system. The results demonstrate that the family therapy prototype is effective in addressing accessibility of family therapy by family members for timely conflicts resolutions at homes to enhance good morals and well-being to the society and country at large.