Journal of Social Sciences and Media Studies

The Impact of Inflation on the Healthcare of the Middle-Class in Pakistan

2025-12-02T11:34:13+00:00

The expense of healthcare has increased over the past few decades all over the world, especially in Pakistan. This trend is mostly rising due to a lack of health-related awareness, changing lifestyles, and the high cost of health technology. To investigate the effects of inflation on the healthcare of the middle class & to understand the particular difficulties they encounter as a result of increasing costs. This cross-sectional study was conducted at Liaquat National Hospital and Medical College, Karachi, among middle-class people visiting for their medical care from August 2024 to February 2025. Statistical analysis was done by IBM SPSS Statistics v27. The demographic profile reveals that among 386 participants, a significant portion of the participants were male (56.7%), primarily over the age of 40 (48.4%), and most had monthly incomes ranging from 20,000 to 69,000 PKR (77.2%). The study identified that inflation has significantly affected healthcare access: 48.4% of participants minimized doctor visits, 40.9% shortened their prescriptions, and 57.8% delayed hospitalizations due to high medical costs. The financial load on healthcare utilization is evident, due to the cost-related concerns; 81.1% of participants postponed medical treatment. These findings highlighted the significant impact of inflation on healthcare access and the financial stability of Pakistan’s middle-class families. The minimization of healthcare services utilization is determined by affordability challenges and highlights the urgent need for structured reforms.

Assessing the Psychometric Properties of Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale: A Pakistani Context

2025-12-02T11:36:51+00:00

The Impostor Phenomenon (IP) refers to a psychological sensation where undergraduates feel fraudulent or undeserving of their achievements, attributing success to external factors rather than their abilities. The most widely used scale to assess the feelings of the IP is the Clance Impostor Phenomenon Scale (CIPS). This study evaluated the psychometric properties of CIPS among Pakistani undergraduates from a general university in Sindh. The research involved two randomly selected samples: the first, comprising of 315 participants (201 males and 114 females), was used for item discrimination, internal consistency reliability, and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). The second sample, consisting of 220 participants (138 males and 82 females), was utilized for Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). Results indicated that CIPS items demonstrated good discrimination power and high internal consistency reliability, with a Cronbach alpha of α = .91. EFA revealed that the IP is a unidimensional construct. CFA confirmed that this one-factor solution fits the data adequately. The findings suggest that the IP, as measured by CIPS, is a unidimensional construct among Pakistani undergraduates. This research contributes valuable insights for evaluating the presence of impostor feelings in educational contexts within Pakistan.

Sindhi and Urdu Speaking Parents’ Attitude to Teach Mother Tongue to their Children in Karachi

2025-12-02T11:38:48+00:00

This qualitative study investigated the attitudes of Sindhi and Urdu-speaking parents in Karachi towards teaching their mother tongues to their children. The study investigated the patterns of language choice, reasons, and preferences for mother tongue transmission in a multilingual metropolitan situation, as language is a crucial component of identity and cultural preservation. The findings of the study reveal that children from Urdu-speaking households showed a preference for English communication, influenced by educational environments that value the language. On the other hand, Sindhi-speaking children demonstrated proficiency in multiple languages, enabling them to navigate various contexts. Language preferences were altered by socio-demographic factors, including socioeconomic status and cultural background. The results have highlighted the need for community involvement in plural language policies that enhance language pluralism to promote the national and regional languages of the country.

Voices from the Margins: A Study of Runaway Girls in Karachi’s Shelter Homes

2025-12-02T11:40:40+00:00

The main objective of the current study was to investigate the experiences and causes of run-away girls living in shelter houses in Karachi. The primary focus of the research was on the causes they left their homes and the challenges they faced after runaway, by using qualitative research method and an exploratory type to explore the reasons and experiences of fugitive girls. The purposive sampling technique was used, and the target population was girls aged 17 to 35. Ten cases were recorded by applying a semi-structured interview method and thematic analyses. Results showed that domestic violence, forced marriages, and lack of family support were the primary causes that forced those girls to flee from their homes. Several of them grieved from mental-health and emotional stress and struggled to regulate their lives in shelter houses. They mostly confronted challenges and worries in trusting others, feeling secured, and upgrading their lives. This research recommends a critical need for healthier social support, counselling services, and awareness movements to support these girls in order to manage with their experiments.

Efficacy of Media Literacy Education in Fostering Digital Citizenship Skills among Early Adolescents

2025-12-02T11:42:00+00:00

The prevalence of digital media in adolescents’ lives is rising at an alarming rate. It has become almost impossible to control the bulk of diverse information reaching immature minds through different digital media platforms every single day. The most pressing challenge of this digital era for parents and academic institutions is to strike a balance between exposure to the digital world and early adolescents’ capability to mitigate its adverse effects. This paper emphasizes integrating media literacy into school curricula to help adolescents to navigate effectively through the complex digital landscape where the role of gatekeepers is non-existent. The study assesses how structured and age-appropriate media literacy can actually correspond to improved performance on the S.A.F.E. scale of digital citizenship. The researcher employed a pretest-post-test experimental design for a sample of 30 early adolescents aged between 11 and 13 years selected from a private school in Karachi using the self-selection sampling technique. The post-test responses of the participants confirmed that media literacy intervention notably helps in exercising digital citizenship with full potential.