194
Views
5
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Articles

Explanatory models of mental disorders among traditional and faith healers in Ghana

ORCID Icon & ORCID Icon
Pages 605-615 | Received 05 Dec 2017, Accepted 19 Apr 2018, Published online: 08 May 2018

References

  • Abbo, C. (2011). Profiles and outcome of traditional healing practices for severe mental illnesses in two districts of Eastern Uganda. Global Health Action, 4, 7117. doi: 10.3402/gha.v4i0.7117
  • Abbo, C., Okello, E. S., Ekblad, S., Waako, P., & Musisi, S. (2008). Lay concepts of psychosis in Busoga, Eastern Uganda: A pilot study. World Cultural Psychiatry Research Review, 3, 132–145.
  • Adewuya, A. O., & Makanjuola, R. O. (2008). Social distance towards people with mental illness in south-western Nigeria. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 42(5), 389–395. doi: 10.1080/00048670801961115
  • Ae-Ngibise, K., Cooper, S., Adiibokah, E., Akpalu, B., Lund, C., & Doku, V. (2010). ‘Whether you like it or not people with mental problems are going to go to them’: A qualitative exploration into the widespread use of traditional and faith healers in the provision of mental healthcare in Ghana. International Review of Psychiatry, 22, 558–567. doi: 10.3109/09540261.2010.536149
  • Aidoo, M., & Harpham, T. (2001). The explanatory models of mental health amongst low-income women and health care practitioners in Lusaka, Zambia. Health Policy & Planning, 16, 206–213. doi: 10.1093/heapol/16.2.206
  • Alem, A., Jacobsson, L., Araya, M., Kebede, D., & Kullgren, G. (1999). How are mental disorders seen and where is help sought in a rural Ethiopian community? A key informant study in Butajira, Ethiopia. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 100, 40–47. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1999.tb10693.x
  • Arias, D., Taylor, L., Ofori-Atta, A., & Bradley, E. H. (2016). Prayer camps and biomedical care in Ghana: Is collaboration in mental health care possible? PLoS ONE, 11(9), e0162305. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162305
  • Asamoah-Gyadu, J. K. (2013). Contemporary Pentecostal Christianity: Interpretations from an African context. Oxford: Regnum Books.
  • Asamoah, M. K., Osafo, J., & Agyapong, I. (2014). The role of Pentecostal clergy in mental health-care delivery in Ghana. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 17(6), 601–614. doi: 10.1080/13674676.2013.871628
  • Bhui, K., & Bhugra, D. (2002). Explanatory models for mental distress: Implications for clinical practice and research. British Journal of Psychiatry, 181, 6–7. doi: 10.1192/bjp.181.1.6
  • Callan, A., & Littlewood, R. (1998). Patient satisfaction: Ethnic origin or explanatory model? International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 44, 1–11. doi: 10.1177/002076409804400101
  • Chowdhury, N. (2016). Integration between mental health-care providers and traditional spiritual healers: Contextualising Islam in the twenty-first century. Journal of Religion & Health, 55, 1665–1671. doi: 10.1007/s10943-016-0234-7
  • Crawford, T. A., & Lipsedge, M. (2004). Seeking help for psychological distress: The interface of Zulu traditional healing and Western biomedicine. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 7(2), 131–148. doi: 10.1080/13674670310001602463
  • Dinos, S., Ascoli, M., Owiti, J. A., & Bhui, K. (2017). Assessing explanatory models and health beliefs: An essential but overlooked competency for clinicians. British Journal of Psychiatry (Advances), 23(2), 106–114. doi: 10.1192/apt.bp.114.013680
  • Doku, V., Ofori-Atta, A., Akpalu, B., Read, U., Osei, A., Ae-Ngibise, K., Omar, M., et al. (2008). A situation analysis of mental health policy development and implementation in Ghana: Phase 1 country report. Accra: Mental Health and Poverty Project.
  • Edwards, J. (2014). Ghana’s mental health patients confined to prayer camps. Lancet, 383, 15–16. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62717-8
  • Gessler, M. C., Msuya, D. E., Nkunya, M. H. H., Schär, A., Heinrich, M., & Tanner, M. (1995). Traditional healers in Tanzania: Sociocultural profile and three short portraits. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 48, 145–160. doi: 10.1016/0378-8741(95)01295-O
  • Gifford, P. (2004). Ghana’s new Christianity: Pentecostalism in a globalizing African economy. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
  • Gureje, O., & Lasebikan, V. O. (2006). Use of mental health services in a developing country: Results from the Nigerian survey of mental health and well-being. Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology, 41, 44–49. doi: 10.1007/s00127-005-0001-7
  • Gureje, O., Nortje, G., Makanjuola, V., Oladeji, B. D., Seedat, S., & Jenkins, R. (2015). The role of global traditional and complementary systems of medicine in the treatment of mental health disorders. The Lancet. Psychiatry, 2, 168–177. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00013-9
  • Haugum, M. (2011). Explanatory models of mental distress and influencing factors in a multicultural setting (Master’s thesis). University of Oslo, Norway.
  • James, B. O., Igbinomwanhia, N. G., & Omoaregba, J. O. (2014). Clergy as collaborators in the delivery of mental health care: An exploratory survey from Benin City, Nigeria. Transcultural Psychiatry, 51(4), 569–580. doi: 10.1177/1363461514525219
  • Kleinman, A. (1980). Patients and healers in the context of culture: An exploration of the borderland between anthropology, medicine and psychiatry. Berkeley, CA: University of California.
  • Kpobi, L., & Swartz, L. (2018). “That is how the real mad people behave”: Beliefs about and treatment of mental disorders by traditional medicine men in Accra, Ghana (Online version). International Journal of Social Psychiatry. doi:10.1177/0020764018763705
  • Kpobi, L., Swartz, L., & Omenyo, C. N. (in press). Traditional herbalists’ methods of treating mental disorders in Ghana. Transcultural Psychiatry.
  • McCabe, R., & Priebe, S. (2004a). Assessing the stability of schizophrenia patients’ explanatory models of illness over time. Journal of Mental Health, 13, 165–171. doi: 10.1080/09638230410001669291
  • McCabe, R., & Priebe, S. (2004b). Explanatory models of illness in schizophrenia: Comparison of four ethnic groups. British Journal of Psychiatry, 185, 25–30. doi: 10.1192/bjp.185.1.25
  • Monteiro, N. M., & Balogun, S. K. (2014). Perceptions of mental illness in Ethiopia: A profile of attitudes, beliefs and practices among community members, healthcare workers and traditional healers. International Journal of Culture & Mental Health, 7(3), 259–272. doi: 10.1080/17542863.2013.784344
  • Muga, F., & Jenkins, R. (2008). Public perceptions, explanatory models and service utilisation regarding mental illness and mental health care in Kenya. Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric Epidemiology, 43(6), 469–476. doi: 10.1007/s00127-008-0334-0
  • Musyimi, C. W., Mutiso, V. N., Nandoya, E. S., & Ndetei, D. N. (2016). Forming a joint dialogue among faith healers, traditional healers and formal health workers in mental health in a Kenyan setting: Towards common grounds. Journal of Ethnobiology & Ethnomedicine, 12(4), 1–8. doi: 10.1186/s13002-015-0075-6
  • Mzimkulu, K. G., & Simbayi, L. C. (2006). Perspectives and practices of Xhosa-speaking African traditional healers when managing psychosis. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 53(4), 417–431. doi: 10.1080/10349120601008563
  • Nortje, G., Oladeji, B., Gureje, O., & Seedat, S. (2016). Effectiveness of traditional healers in treating mental disorders: A systematic review. The Lancet. Psychiatry, 3, 154–170. doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(15)00515-5
  • Ofori-Atta, A., Cooper, S., Akpalu, B., Osei, A., Doku, V., Lund, C., … The MHaPP Research Programme Consortium. (2010). Common understandings of women’s mental illness in Ghana: Results from a qualitative study. International Review of Psychiatry, 22, 589–598. doi: 10.3109/09540261.2010.536150
  • Okello, E., & Neema, S. (2007). Explanatory models and help seeking behaviour: Pathways to psychiatric care among patients admitted for depression in Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda. Qualitative Health Research, 17, 14–25. doi: 10.1177/1049732306296433
  • Olafsdottir, S., & Pescosolido, B. A. (2011). Constructing illness: How the public in eight Western nations responds to a clinical description of ‘schizophrenia’. Social Science & Medicine, 73, 929–938. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.06.029
  • Opare-Henaku, A., & Utsey, S. O. (2017). Culturally prescribed beliefs about mental illness among the Akan of Ghana. Transcultural Psychiatry, 54(4), 502–522. doi: 10.1177/1363461517708120
  • Opoku, O. (2002). Deliverance as a way of confronting witchcraft in modern Africa: Ghana as a case history. Asian Journal of Pentecostal Studies, 5(1), 107–134.
  • Osafo, J., Agyapong, M., & Asamoah, M. K. (2015). Exploring the nature of treatment regimen for mentally ill persons by neo-prophetic ministers in Ghana. International Journal of Culture & Mental Health, 8(3), 325–339. doi: 10.1080/17542863.2014.973428
  • Osei, A. O. (2001). Types of psychiatric illness at traditional healing centres in Ghana. Ghana Medical Journal, 35, 106–110.
  • Patel, V. (1995). Explanatory models of mental illness in Sub-Saharan Africa. Social Science & Medicine, 40, 1291–1298. doi: 10.1016/0277-9536(94)00231-H
  • Patel, V., Musara, T., Butau, T., Maramba, P., & Fuyane, S. (1995). Concepts of mental illness and medical pluralism in Harare. Psychological Medicine, 25(3), 485–493. doi: 10.1017/S0033291700033407
  • Quinn, N. (2007). Beliefs and community responses to mental illness in Ghana: The experiences of family carers. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 53(2), 175–188. doi: 10.1177/0020764006074527
  • Read, U. M. (2017). “Doctor sickness” or “Pastor sickness”? Contested domains of healing power in the treatment of mental illness in Kintampo, Ghana. In H. Basu, R. Littlewood, & A. S. Steinforth (Eds.), Spirit and mind: Mental health at the intersection of religion and psychiatry (pp. 167–188). Munster: LIT verlag.
  • Saxena, S., Thornicroft, G., Knapp, M., & Whiteford, H. A. (2007). Resources for mental health: Scarcity, inequity and inefficiency. Lancet, 370, 878–889. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61239-2
  • Shankar, B. R., Saravanan, B., & Jacob, K. S. (2006). Explanatory models of common mental disorders among traditional healers and their patients in rural South India. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 52(3), 221–233. doi: 10.1177/0020764006067215
  • Sodi, T., Mudhovozi, P., Mashamba, T., Radzilani-Makatu, M., Takalani, J., & Mabunda, J. (2011). Indigenous healing practices in Limpopo Province of South Africa: A qualitative study. International Journal of Health Promotion & Education, 49(3), 101–110. doi: 10.1080/14635240.2011.10708216
  • Sorsdahl, K. R., Flisher, A. J., Wilson, Z., & Stein, D. J. (2010). Explanatory models of mental disorders and treatment practices among traditional healers in Mpumalanga, South Africa. African Journal of Psychiatry, 13, 284–290. doi: 10.4314/ajpsy.v13i4.61878
  • Tabi, M. M., Powell, M., & Hodnicki, D. (2006). Use of traditional healers and modern medicine in Ghana. International Nursing Review, 53, 52–58. doi:10.1111/j.1466-7657.2006.00444.x
  • Teuton, J., Bental, R., & Dowrick, C. (2007). Conceptualizing psychosis in Uganda: The perspectives of indigenous and religious healers. Transcultural Psychiatry, 44(1), 79–114. doi: 10.1177/1363461507074976
  • Tsey, K. (1997). Traditional medicine in contemporary Ghana: A public policy analysis. Social Science & Medicine, 45, 1065–1074. doi: 10.1016/S0277-9536(97)00034-8
  • Ventevogel, P., Jordans, M., Reis, R., & de Jong, J. (2013). Madness or sadness? Local concepts of mental illness in four conflict-affected African communities. Conflict & Health, 7. doi: 10.1186/1752-1505-7-3
  • White, P. (2015). The concept of diseases and health care in African traditional religion in Ghana. HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, 71(3). Art. No. 2762. doi:10.4102/hts.v71i3.2762
  • World Health Organization. (2013). Traditional medicine strategy 2014–2023. Geneva: Author.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.