Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Cambridge, USA.
Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
BMC Complement Med Ther. 2024 Nov 21;24(1):404. doi: 10.1186/s12906-024-04700-1.
Although Western biomedical treatment has dramatically increased across sub-Saharan African health systems, traditional medicine as a form of healing and beliefs in supernatural powers as explanations for disease remain prevalent. Research in this region has identified HIV in particular as a disease located within both the traditional African and Western medical paradigms, whilst mental illness is ascribed to primarily supernatural causes. Within this context, this study sought to understand and explore the perceptions of HIV and mental illness among a population of rural women in Limpopo, South Africa. 82 in-depth interviews were conducted between January and December, 2022. Interviews were transcribed and translated into English. Data were managed using NVivo 11 software and thematically analyzed. The majority of participants identified HIV as a Western illness requiring biomedical treatment with an origin largely attributed to biological mechanisms. A traditional form of HIV only cured using traditional treatments was also denoted. Unlike for HIV, the majority of respondents felt that there was no biological or behavioral cause for mental illness but rather the illness was conceptualized supernaturally thus likely impacting patient care pathways. Further research to study HIV and mental health perceptions among a larger sample in different regions of sub-Saharan Africa is warranted.
尽管在撒哈拉以南非洲的卫生系统中，西方的生物医学治疗有了显著的增长，但传统医学作为一种治疗方式和对超自然力量的信仰仍然很普遍，用来解释疾病。该地区的研究特别发现，艾滋病毒既是传统非洲医学和西方医学模式下的一种疾病，也是精神疾病的主要归因于超自然原因。在这种情况下，本研究旨在了解和探索南非林波波省农村妇女对艾滋病毒和精神疾病的看法。2022 年 1 月至 12 月期间，进行了 82 次深入访谈。访谈内容被转录并翻译成英文。数据使用 NVivo 11 软件进行管理，并进行了主题分析。大多数参与者将艾滋病毒视为一种需要生物医学治疗的西方疾病，其起源主要归因于生物机制。还提到了一种传统形式的艾滋病毒，只能用传统方法治疗。与艾滋病毒不同，大多数受访者认为精神疾病没有生物学或行为学上的原因，而是从超自然的角度来理解这种疾病，这可能会影响到患者的护理途径。有必要在撒哈拉以南非洲的不同地区，用更大的样本量进一步研究艾滋病毒和精神健康认知。
