Care seeking and beliefs about the cause of mental illness among Nigerian psychiatric patients and their families.
OBJECTIVE
This study examined treatment seeking by 219 psychiatric patients at a teaching hospital in Kano, Nigeria.


METHODS
Patients or their families were interviewed about the types of mental health healers that patients saw before seeking conventional psychiatric treatment and beliefs about the causes of the illness.


RESULTS
The length of illness before the psychiatric consultation was 4.5 years, and 99 (45%) respondents reported that patients had previously sought religious healing. A majority of respondents (N=128, 59%) attributed the illness to supernatural forces. Up to 68% and 75% of respondents who believed in a medical or genetic cause of illness, respectively, reported seeking a psychiatric consultation within six months of onset, and about 70% who believed in supernatural forces reported seeking psychiatric consultation five years after onset or later (p<.05).


CONCLUSIONS
Mental health planners should educate alternative mental health healers and integrate them in the care of mental illness.
Department of Psychiatry, Bayero University, P.M.B. 3011, Kano 234, Nigeria. drchikan@yahoo.co.uk
Chikaodiri Nkereuwem
CN
Aghukwa
D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health / Q000208:ethnology*; D003469:Culture; D029221:Faith Healing; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D009549:Nigeria; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care / Q000208:ethnology*