Pathways to mental health treatment: biomedical versus faith- healing

Abstract

Abstract Background Understanding the pathways to mental health treatment is important to inform service outcome, yet limited empirical research has been conducted. This paper explores the pathways used to treat mental illness in Ghana from the perspective of consumers and mental health professionals (MHPs).Methods The paper used a qualitative method, involving in-depth interview with 30 mental health professionals and 21 consumers, selected through purposive sampling. The data were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis.Results The findings indicate that mental illness is treated using biomedical, faith based and traditional healing services. Faith and traditional healing pathways are typically used as a preliminary source or first point of care before seeking biomedical treatment. The decisions regarding treatment pathways are influenced by predisposing factors, particularly belief systems and attitudes, as well as enabling factors including acceptability. The study also found an increasing informal collaboration between faith and biomedical practitioners and call for more formalised integration of the existing mental health system.Conclusion The existing interest and knowledge on faith-healing services should be formalise for policy re-formulation, and further integrated into curriculum design for training mental health professionals. Current collaboration and education provided to faith-healing providers, should be promoted, and integrated into the mental health systems.