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ABSTRACT
Purpose
As cancers increase in Ghana and in many low-and middle-income countries, healthcare utilization has become critical for disease management and patients’ wellbeing. There is evidence that medical pluralism is common among cancer patients in Ghana and many other African countries, which results in lack of adherence to and absconding from hospital treatments. The objective of this study was to examine ways in which beliefs in disease causation influence medical pluralism among Akan cancer patients in Ghana.
Methods
A qualitative research approach was employed in this study. In-depth interviews were conducted for thirty (30) cancer patients who were purposively recruited from Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Ghana. Thematic content analysis was used in analysing data.
Results
Our findings revealed that cancer patients ascribed both physical and spiritual causality to their illness. As such, they combined orthodox treatment with spiritual healing and herbal medicine. Regarding the order of therapeutic search, patients reported to herbal and spiritual centres before going to the hospital, a phenomenon which contributes to the late reporting and diagnosis as well as bad prognosis of cancers in Ghana.
Conclusion
The findings of this research elucidate the relationship between culture and health care choices of cancer patients in Ghana. Increased awareness creation is crucial in eradicating myths surrounding cancers in Ghana.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Patience Gyamenah Okyere Asante
Patience Gyamenah Okyere Asante holds a PhD in Development Studies, an M.Phil. in African Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Classics from the University of Ghana. Her research area is in gender, health, and development. Her PhD thesis was on the assessment of the economic burden of breast and cervical cancer treatment in Ghana. Her MPhil thesis was on culture and healthcare pluralism among Akan cancer patients in Ghana.
Patience has tutored in courses such as Gender, Health, and Cultures in Africa; Gender and Development in Africa; Culture and Gender in African Societies; and Issues in Africa’s Population. She has made several presentations at international conferences such as the African Studies Association of Africa conferences, 2019 and 2022; Edinburgh Catalyst Regional Conference in West Africa, 2021; European Conference on African Studies, ECAS 2019; 4th College of Humanities International Conference, 2018.
She has won awards and fellowships including the Queen Elizabeth Fellowship 2022, Canada; Edinburgh Non-Residential Fellowship, 2020; Catalyst Africa Research Fellowship 2019, University of Edinburgh, UK; African Women Development Fund, 2019; and DAAD Scholarship, 2017-2021, Germany. Patience is currently the project administrator for the Gender Responsive Malaria Advocacy and Policy Project at the Centre for Gender Studies, University of Ghana.
Chloe Z Tuck
Chloe Tuck is a PhD candidate at the School of Health and Related Research at the University of Sheffield (UK) on the Wellcome Trust Doctoral Training Programme on Public Health, Health Economic and Decision Science. Her research applies mixed methods approaches to explore socioecological influences on inequalities in treatment access in Northern Ghana. She is passionate about working to promote equity in health and wellbeing and has several years’ experience working in project management, communications and research for global health charities. She has a Masters in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford.
Deborah Atobrah
Deborah Atobrah holds a PhD and an MPhil in African Studies from the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. She has two Post Graduate Certificates from the University of Bergen Norway, in Global Health Challenges (2010) and in Global Poverty and Development (2008). Dr. Atobrah won the Rockefeller Residency Award at the Bellagio Centre of Rockefeller Foundation in 2012, and the Duke University Provost Travel Award 2013. In 2015, she became a fellow of Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health’s prestigious Takemi Programme in Global Health. She is also a Catalyst Fellow at Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh. In 2014, she was consulted to evaluate the gendered impacts of the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s water projects in Ghana. She also contributed a chapter on Ghana to the Progress of the World’s Women 2019-2020: Families in a Changing World, commissioned by UNWomen. Since 2018, Deborah has been a member of the Gender Working Group of the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Support Programme on Climate Change.