IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/socpsy/v60y2014i3p274-279.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Causal attribution of mental illness in south-eastern Nigeria

Author

Listed:
  • Ugo Ikwuka
  • Niall Galbraith
  • Lovemore Nyatanga

Abstract

Background: Understanding of mental illness in sub-Saharan Africa has remained under-researched in spite of the high and increasing neuropsychiatric burden of disease in the region. Aims: This study investigated the causal beliefs that the Igbo people of south-eastern Nigeria hold about schizophrenia, with a view to establishing the extent to which the population makes psychosocial, biological and supernatural attributions. Method: Multi-stage sampling was used to select participants ( N = 200 ) to which questionnaires were administered. Results: Mean comparison of the three causal models revealed a significant endorsement of supernatural causation. Logistic regressions revealed significant contributions of old age and female gender to supernatural attribution; old age, high education and Catholic religious denomination to psychosocial attributions; and high education to biological attributions. Conclusions: It is hoped that the findings would enlighten, augment literature and enhance mental health care service delivery.

Suggested Citation

  • Ugo Ikwuka & Niall Galbraith & Lovemore Nyatanga, 2014. "Causal attribution of mental illness in south-eastern Nigeria," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 60(3), pages 274-279, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:60:y:2014:i:3:p:274-279
    DOI: 10.1177/0020764013485331
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0020764013485331
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0020764013485331?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tuckett, David & Williams, Abthony, 1984. "Approaches to the measurement of explanation and information-giving in medical consultations: A review of empirical studies," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 18(7), pages 571-580, January.
    2. S.T.C. Ilechukwu, 1988. "Inter-Relationships of Beliefs About Mental Illness, Psychiatric Diagnoses and Mental Health Care Delivery Among Africans," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 34(3), pages 200-206, September.
    3. Adrian Furnham & Anuli Igboaka, 2007. "Young People's Recognition and Understanding of Schizophrenia: a Cross-Cultural Study of Young People From Britain and Nigeria," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 53(5), pages 430-446, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christopher Lui & Cheuk Wong & Adrian Furnham, 2016. "Mental health literacy in Hong Kong," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 62(6), pages 505-511, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Saheed Wahass & Gerry Kent, 1997. "A Comparison of Public Attitudes in Britain and Saudi Arabia Towards Auditory Hallucinations," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 43(3), pages 175-183, September.
    2. Alejandra Caqueo-Urízar & Joshua Breslau & Stephen E Gilman, 2015. "Beliefs about the causes of schizophrenia among Aymara and non-Aymara patients and their primary caregivers in the Central–Southern Andes," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 61(1), pages 82-91, February.
    3. Mehmet Eskin, 1989. "Rural Population's Opinions About the Causes of Mental Illness, Modern Psychiatric Help-Sources and Traditional Healers in Turkey," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 35(4), pages 324-328, December.
    4. Kaiser, Bonnie N. & Haroz, Emily E. & Kohrt, Brandon A. & Bolton, Paul A. & Bass, Judith K. & Hinton, Devon E., 2015. "“Thinking too much”: A systematic review of a common idiom of distress," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 170-183.
    5. Subin Park & Minji Lee & Adrian Furnham & Mina Jeon & Young-Mi Ko, 2017. "Lay beliefs about the causes and cures of schizophrenia," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 63(6), pages 518-524, September.
    6. Harris K Chilale & Ndumanene Devlin Silungwe & Saulos Gondwe & Charles Masulani-Mwale, 2017. "Clients and carers perception of mental illness and factors that influence help-seeking: Where they go first and why," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 63(5), pages 418-425, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:60:y:2014:i:3:p:274-279. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.