Perceptions And Attitudes Towards Mental Illness: The Case Of Pantang Community

ABSTRACT Despite an increase in the number of individuals affected by mental illness, mental health facilities in Ghana are few and ill resourced, leading to stress on the few facilitates available. Alternatively, community-based care is being proposed by Ghana‟s Mental Health sector to reduce stress on mental health facilities. Societal attitudes and perceptions towards mental illness and mental health, however, affect the effectiveness of community -based care. The main goal of this study was to determine how members of the Pantang community in Accra, perceived mental illness and their attitudes towards the mentally ill. Using in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, data was collected from twenty-eight participants from two communities in Pantang. The results reveal that participants believe mental illness is caused by a curse from supernatural beings, stress from relationship problems, drug use, overindulgence in certain habits and having a dubious character. Participants indicate that alternative treatment with the use of herbs and prayers, is best for treating mental illness since they believe hospitals only manage symptoms and do not provide treatment. Despite this belief, some participants are of the view that, some patients need to be permanently kept at a psychiatric facility to protect them and society. Participants were willing to have the mentally ill as neighbours and were willing to live in the same house and take care of relatives who were mentally ill. Community members‟ support for the mentally ill was basically influenced among other things by perception of the causes, relationship to the person and religious duty. Based on these findings, communities must be educated on the causes of mental illness to do away with misconceptions about the illness. Psychiatric social workers must be trained to form, facilitate and monitor support groups in the community and to assist families with the skills needed to care for the mentally ill.