Journal of Applied Research and Multidisciplinary Studies

A Qualitative Narrative of Experiences and Challenges Faced by Women-led Organizations on Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Pakistan

Rimsha Bashir — 2025-06-06

Peacebuilding has become a fundamental process to avoid bloodshed and accelerate the establishment of ongoing peace and tolerance. Significantly, women’s involvement is becoming more precarious in peacebuilding and conflict resolution. The main objective of this research is to explore the challenges and experiences faced by women-led peacebuilding and conflict resolution initiatives in Pakistan. A qualitative research design has been adopted, using an exploratory technique to explore the women leaders’ challenges, experiences, and effectiveness associated with the local women-led initiatives for peacebuilding and conflict resolution. A total of 20 Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) were conducted with 9 organizations, representing all four provinces of Pakistan. These included women leaders/founders, their management team, and donors. After seeking permission, interviews were recorded and transcribed for thematic analysis. The qualitative analysis revealed that these women-led initiatives were founded to serve the community and save local people, especially girls and women from both short and long-term effects of disputes, tribal conflicts, and civil wars. The same is also evident from their ongoing projects, focusing on raising the women’s unheard voices, their empowerment, and capacity building. Nevertheless, these women-led organizations and their team also face multiple barriers to engaging local women. These included ones were not limited to the lack of interest of all stakeholders, scarcity of finances to mobilize communities, issue of sustainability, lack of community support, law & order situation, patriarchal set-up, cultural norms, gender roles, power dynamics, and religious grounds. This research recommends that these women-led organizations, working for peacebuilding and conflict resolution on regional and provincial levels should be provided with necessary government and community support, both technical and financial, to enhance their effectiveness and sustainability.

Family Relations, Alexithymia, and Eating Attitudes in Pakistani University Student

Anam Bibi — 2025-06-09

This study was done to examine the relationship between family relations, alexithymia, and eating attitudes in university students. It was hypothesized that a relationship is likely to be there between family relations, alexithymia, and eating attitudes in university students. Further, family relations, and alexithymia are likely to predict eating attitudes in university students. It was also hypothesized that there would be gender differences across family relations, alexithymia, and eating attitudes in university students. This was a correlation study with cross-sectional research design. Non-probability convenient sampling strategy was used to recruit N=230 university students. Assessment measures were self-constructed demographic information sheet, Index of Family Relations (Hudson, 1993), Toronto Alexithymia Scale (Bagby et al., 1986), Eating Attitudes Test (Garner & Garfinkel, 1979). Results reveal that family relations were positively correlated with alexithymia and eating attitudes and alexithymia was also positively correlated with eating attitudes in university students. There were no gender differences in family relations, alexithymia, and eating attitudes in university students. This study has implications for family, therapists, university counselors, and policy makers.

Persuasive Appeals: Influence of Digital Advertisements on Consumer Attitude Diversion in E-Shopping

Dr. Qamar Abbas — 2025-06-11

Digital advertising is one sector of marketing that is swiftly advancing. Marketers and academics are now paying monumental attention this mode of advertising because it is one of the most effective instruments of lure and persuasion of consumer in the digital era. Regulators have now turned to devising varied ways of exploiting digital platform to maximize profitability and that digital advertisements become the blood line to any business to maneuver consumer online buying behavior. The current study will seek to establish persuasive appeal of online advertisements that affect the degree of attitude diversion in consumers towards e-shopping. An example of a cross-sectional study design has been employed to gather quantitative data on a sample of 1270 students selected out of the top six public universities in KP, Pakistan, using a multistage stratified sampling technique. The information was collected by the help of self-designed questionnaires and analyzed with Simple Linear Regression. The statistical analysis shows that the extent of the attitude diversion of the consumers in the cognitive, affective, and conative dimension is greatly influenced by the nature of digital advertisements, which will eventually influence their intentions to purchase online.

Digitization of Land Title and Records of the Cooperative Housing Societies

Munib ur Rehman — 2025-06-16

Cooperatives are autonomous, people centered and voluntary associations of persons efficaciously addressing the common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations of the members, aiming at their wellbeing through collective action. These organizations work democratically, in line with Cooperative Principles & Values to meet their objectives. Cooperatives have exhibited remarkable performance in almost all sectors of economic life. In housing, Cooperatives’ contribution is significant as it added to government’s affirmation of providing shelter to the shelter-less on self-help basis without any governmental financial implication. Cooperative Department Govt of Punjab has, time and again, been introducing different interventions to strengthen the Cooperative Societies so as to make them more vibrant player in national economy. Computerization of Landtitles and Records (CLTR) of Cooperative Housing Societies in Punjab is one of such initiative to ensure transparency, efficiency and strengthening of cooperative institutions through automation of processes. The focus of present study is to evaluate the working of the CLTR in institutionalizing the transparency, efficient service delivery and effective monitoring . The study, first ever of its kind, was conducted through qualitative approach by discourse analysis (organizational documents) and by semi structured interviews. The data so collected was thematically analyzed using Nvivo v 10 which indicated that implementation of this intervention was highly welcomed and is considered as a meaningful measure for enhancement in the performance of Cooperatives Department as well as of Cooperative Housing Societies as well as ensuring strengthening of the cooperative movement and creating employment opportunities in the society.

Psychological Distress and Coping Styles in Young Adult Women: A Community-Based Correlational Study from Pakistan

KISHWAR ALTAF — 2025-06-20

With the increasing social, cultural and environmental demands, women are especially sensitive to psychological distress and thus, the concept of coping should be accompanied by the knowledge of how coping supports mental health and general well-being. It was a comparative cross-sectional study and aimed to establish the level of psychological distress and coping strategies among Pakistani women who were using to cope with the distress It used convenience sampling to recruit 249 women (aged 20-39 years). The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21) was used to measure psychological distress, including depression, anxiety, and stress, whereas the Brief COPE measured coping strategies, including problem-focused, emotion-focused, and avoidant coping. The results showed that a significant percentage of the women had moderate to high levels of psychological distress, and extremely severe anxiety. Results further indicate that maladaptive coping styles, i.e., avoidance coping, plays a significant role in expanding psychological distress among young adult women. Boosting adaptive coping style may therefore be critical for lowering level of distress symptoms. These findings would be useful for policymakers, clinicians, and mental health practitioners to develop relevant interventions that could improve the psychological well-being of women in Pakistan.