Reassessing the Mental Health Treatment Gap: What Happens if We Include the Impact of Traditional Healing on Mental Illness?

Pham, Tony V; Koirala, Rishav; Wainberg, Milton L.; Kohrt, Brandon A.

doi:10.1007/s10597-020-00705-5

Cited by 15 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 143 publications

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“…For example, religious centres, community ties, family support structures, traditional healers, village leaders, and youth groups are all contextually varying resources that are essential to engage with to overcome mental and physical health threats, including those of COVID-19. 121 , 122 , 123 Compared with deficit-based assessments of resources, typically defined in terms of money and biomedical resources, strength-based assessments provide more nuanced perspectives on the assets of heterogeneous contexts and avoid the displacement of effective local strategies by imported, context-free approaches. 121 Much can be learned from implementation research methodologies that measure local conditions and evaluate context-dependent mechanisms of change when evaluating interventions and implementation strategies for mental health care across settings.…”

Section: Reimagining the Principles Of Global Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 mental health impact and responses in low-income and middle-income countries: reimagining global mental health

Kola

Kohrt

Hanlon

et al. 2021

The Lancet Psychiatry

582

419

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Section: Reimagining the Principles Of Global Mental Healthmentioning

confidence: 99%

COVID-19 mental health impact and responses in low-income and middle-income countries: reimagining global mental health

Kola

Kohrt

Hanlon

et al. 2021

The Lancet Psychiatry

582

419

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“…Within the Nigerian context, these "homes" are places of spiritual commitments and worship through continued prayers, fasting, prophecies and divine visions as therapeutic processes for healing MHCs (Labinjo et al, 2020). Consequently, traditional and religious healing institutions and their collaboration with biomedical services would help transform the Nigerian mental health sector and further address the global mental health treatment gap (Pham et al, 2020;Gureje et al, 2019;Jidong et al, 2020aJidong et al, , 2020b.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Nigerian cultural beliefs about mental health conditions and traditional healing: a qualitative study

Jidong

Bailey

Sodi

et al. 2021

JMHTEP

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Purpose This study aims to explore how cultural beliefs and traditions are integral to understanding indigenous mental health conditions (MHCs) and traditional healing (TH). However, Nigerian cultural beliefs about MHCs and TH are under-researched. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a qualitative design using critical realist and social constructionist perspectives to explore Nigerian mental health-care practitioners (MHCPs) and lay participants’ (LPs) views regarding MHCs and TH. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to select 53 participants (MHCPs = 26; LPs = 27; male = 32; female = 21) in four Nigerian cities (Ado-Ekiti, Enugu, Jos and Zaria). Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed through thematic analyses. Findings The data sets revealed three overarching themes, namely, existing cultural beliefs about MHCs as spiritual curse; description of TH as the first treatment modality for MHCs; and perceived stigma associated with MHCs and help-seeking behaviours. Originality/value A study on Nigerian cultural beliefs and TH contributes meaningfully to mental health systems. Future research and policy initiatives could explore ways of optimising TH practices and community awareness programmes to increase access to mental health care in Nigeria.

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“…As only the recognition and attribution of these indicators as being a part of a mental health problem was assessed, the respondents were allowed to answer according to any beliefs, perceptions or knowledge they possessed. Spiritual problems were included in the list as there is a tendency in Asian populations to attribute features of mental health problems to spiritual factors and seek traditional healing methods (Pham et al, 2021). The broad terms social problems and cultural problems were not used as this age group may not have been able to differentiate between these categories.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ability of adolescents to recognise common indicators of mental health problems, and their sources of mental health knowledge

Attygalle

Perera

Jayamanne

2021

Sri Lanka J. Soc. Sci.

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There is evidence that many mental health disorders have their origin in adolescence, and that early intervention can improve long-term outcomes. Thus, it is important that adolescents are able to recognise complex indicators of mental health problems that could also be understood in the context of other issues. As such, the objectives of this study were to describe the ability of an adolescent population to recognise and attribute poor school performance, headaches, fatigue, body aches, aggression and violence, to a mental health problem. The common sources of mental health knowledge in this population were also described. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study, conducted in the Sri Jayawardenapura education zone in Sri Lanka, using a structured, pre-tested questionnaire. A multistage cluster sampling method was used with a total sample size of 1002. The results show that poor school work was attributed to a mental health problem by 56% (n=562). The attribution rates for headaches, fatigue and body aches were 42.3%, 32.7%, and 26.5%, respectively. Aggression (64.2%) and violence (66.8 %) was mostly attributed to mental health problems. The main sources of mental health knowledge were subjects taught at school (71.7%) and television (50.9%). Educating adolescents on the possibility of somatic symptoms being part of a mental health problem, and conversely understanding the contribution of other factors to aggression and violence are important. Both traditional and newer forms of media can be utilized for this purpose.

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Reassessing the Mental Health Treatment Gap: What Happens if We Include the Impact of Traditional Healing on Mental Illness?

Cited by 15 publications

References 143 publications

COVID-19 mental health impact and responses in low-income and middle-income countries: reimagining global mental health

COVID-19 mental health impact and responses in low-income and middle-income countries: reimagining global mental health

Nigerian cultural beliefs about mental health conditions and traditional healing: a qualitative study

The ability of adolescents to recognise common indicators of mental health problems, and their sources of mental health knowledge

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