Achimota Hospital, Accra, Ghana.
Department of Built Environment, University of Environment and Sustainable Development, Somanya, Ghana.
Br J Health Psychol. 2024 May;29(2):317-332. doi: 10.1111/bjhp.12701. Epub 2023 Oct 16.
The study aimed at examining the lived experiences of relatives caring for family members with mental illness in Ghana.
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was adopted to explore caregivers' in-depth experiences. Fifteen caregivers were purposefully selected from four hospitals within the Greater Accra Region of Ghana, and they were engaged in face-to-face interview sessions through the semi-structured guided interviews. Interviews were transcribed into text formats and analysed using the IPA approach.
Three superordinate themes and their respective sub-themes were identified. Theme 1: Being with the mentally ill (time consuming; financial burden; healer shopping); Theme 2: Psychosocial effect (stigmatization; stress and depression; changes in social/work life); Theme3: Coping resources (prayers/spirituality; psychological capital - ignoring, self-encouragement, acceptance, routinization; social/family support; reading).
It was recommended that healthcare professionals ought to prepare family members for the emotional challenges by providing them with constant therapeutic service to help reduce their emotional strain associated with the burden of care. Public education should be intensified for people to understand the need for accepting people with mental illness in order to reduce the issue of stigmatization. Again, government should institute policies through its agencies (Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service) to assist the caregivers in the discharge of responsibilities. This could take the form of reducing cost of drugs, and establishing community mental health care to provide immediate support.
本研究旨在探讨加纳照料精神疾病患者的亲属的生活体验。
采用解释现象学分析（IPA）方法深入探讨照顾者的体验。从加纳大阿克拉地区的四家医院中，有目的选择了 15 名照顾者，并通过半结构化引导访谈进行了面对面访谈。访谈转录成文本格式，并使用 IPA 方法进行分析。
确定了三个上位主题及其各自的下位主题。主题 1：与精神病患者在一起（耗时；经济负担；寻医问药）；主题 2：心理社会影响（污名化；压力和抑郁；社会/工作生活的变化）；主题 3：应对资源（祈祷/灵性；心理资本-忽视、自我鼓励、接受、常规化；社会/家庭支持；阅读）。
建议医疗保健专业人员通过提供持续的治疗服务，为家庭成员做好应对情感挑战的准备，以帮助减轻他们因照顾负担而产生的情绪压力。应加强公众教育，使人们认识到接受精神疾病患者的必要性，以减少污名化问题。此外，政府应通过其机构（卫生部、加纳卫生局）制定政策，帮助照顾者履行职责。这可以采取降低药物成本的形式，并建立社区精神卫生保健机构，提供即时支持。
