Perceived Beliefs about Etiology of Mental Illness among Tribal Patients in India
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51333/njpsw.2021.v22.i1.288Abstract
Introduction: Cultural dynamics play an important role in shaping the perceptions, beliefs and practices of people towards mental illness and its treatment. Cultural relativists mention that the explanation of mental illness cannot stay isolated from the individual’s social and cultural context. Every culture has its own way of explaining mental illness which is based on a set of beliefs and practices. Objective: To explore the perceived beliefs about the etiology of mental illness among the tribal patients visiting a psychiatric setup. Methods: The study has followed a qualitative method to achieve the objective. Qualitative content analysis has been used for data management and analysis. Results: The etiology of mental illness has been categorised into four types, i.e. stress, western physiology, non-western physiology and supernatural. Data shows that 44% (22) of patients reported, ‘stress’ as the main cause of mental illness whereas 40% (20) of the patients believe in the supernatural causes as the etiology. Conclusion: Supernatural beliefs are highly dominated on deciding the etiology of mental illness among the patients in this 21st century; which is required immediate actions and creating awareness to educate the people.
Keywords: Beliefs, etiology, mental illness, tribal
References
Avasthi, A., Kate, N., & Grover, S. (2013). Indianization of psychiatry utilizing Indian mental concepts. Indian journal of psychiatry, 55(Suppl 2), S136.
Banerjee, G., & Roy, S. (1998). Determinants of help-seeking behaviour of families of schizophrenic patients attending a teaching hospital in India: An indigenous explanatory model. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 44(3), 199-214.
Banerjee, T., Mukherjee, S. P., Nandi, D. N., Banerjee, G., Mukherjee, A., Sen, B., ...& Boral, G. C. (1986). Psychiatric morbidity in an urbanized tribal (santal) community-a field survey. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 28(3), 243.
Berry, J.W. (1970). Marginality, stress and ethnic identification in an acculturated aboriginal community. Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology, 3(1), 239–252
Chakraborty, K., Das, G., Dan, A., Bandyopadhyay, G., & Chatterjee, M. (2013). Perceptions about the cause of psychiatric disorders and subsequent help-seeking patterns among psychiatric outpatients in a tertiary care centre in eastern India. German Journal of Psychiatry, 16(1).
Crowe, M., Inder, M., & Porter, R. (2015). Conducting qualitative research in mental health: Thematic and content analyses. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 49(7), 616-623.
Dube, S. C. (1970). Manavaur Sanskriti (2nd Ed). Rajkamal Prakashan, ND: New Delhi
Gaiha, S. M., Sunil, G. A., Kumar, R., & Menon, S. (2014). Enhancing mental health literacy in India to reduce stigma: the fountainhead to improve help-seeking behaviour. Journal of Public Mental Health.
Eisenbruch, M. (1990). Classification of natural and supernatural causes of mental distress. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 178(11), 712-719.
Flick, U. (2014). An introduction to qualitative research. Sage Publications Limited.
Fortes, G. M., & Mayer, D. Y. (1966). Psychosis and social change among the Tallensi of Northern Ghana. Cahiers d'étudesafricaines, 6(Cahier 21), 5-40.
Hamilton, J. B. (2014). Rigor in qualitative methods: An evaluation of strategies among underrepresented rural communities. Qualitative Health Research, 30(2), 196-204.
Kar, N. (2008). Resort to faith-healing practices in the pathway to care for mental illness: a study on psychiatric inpatients in Orissa. Mental Health, Religion and Culture, 11(7), 720-740.
Kate, N., Grover, S., Kulhara, P., & Nehra, R. (2012). Supernatural beliefs, aetiological models and help seeking behaviour in patients with schizophrenia. Industrial Psychiatry Journal, 21(1), 49.
Kishore, J., Gupta, A., Jiloha, R. C., & Bantman, P. (2011). Myths, beliefs and perceptions about mental disorders and health-seeking behavior in Delhi, India. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 53(4), 324.
Kleinman, A. (1980). Patients and healers in the context of culture: An exploration of the borderland between anthropology, medicine, and psychiatry. London: University of California Press.
Lincoln, Y. S., & Denzin, N. K. (Eds.). (2000). Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 163-188). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Mayring, P (2000). Qualitative Content Analysis Forum Qualitative Social Research. In Forum: Qualitative Social Research (Vol. 1, No. 2), Freie Universität Berlin. pp. 2-00.
Mene, T. (2011). Suicide among the Idu Mishmi Tribe of Arunachal Pradesh (Ph.D. thesis). Rajiv Gandhi University, Itanagar.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Sage Publication.
Mishra, R. C. (2015). Mental health problems in culturally changing Adivasi communities. Psychology and Developing Societies, 27(2), 214-230.
Mishra, R.C., Sinha, D., & Berry, J.W. (1996). Ecology, acculturation and psychological adaptation: A study of Adivasis in Bihar. New Delhi: SAGE.
Nandi, D. N., Mukherjee, S. P., Boral, G. C., Banerjee, G., Ghosh, A., Ajmany, S., ... & Biswas, D. (1977). Prevalence of psychiatric morbidity in two tribal communities in certain villages of West Bengal-a cross cultural study. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 19(3), 2.
Nandi, D. N., Mukherjee, S. P., Boral, G. C., Banerjee, G., Ghosh, A., Sarkar, S., &Ajmany, S. (1980). Socio-economic status and mental morbidity in certain tribes and castes in India--a cross-cultural study. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 136(1), 73-85.
National Mental Health Survey (NMHS). (2015-16). National Mental Health Survey of India 205-16. Government of India.
Nayar, U., & Das, S. (2012). Mental Health of Children and Adolescent in Contemporary India. U. Nayar, Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 337-350.
Ogorchukwu, J. M., Sekaran, V. C., & Sreekumaran Nair, L. A. (2016). Mental health literacy among late adolescents in South India: What they know and what attitudes drive them. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 38(3), 234.
Padmavati, R., Thara, R., & Corin, E. (2005). A qualitative study of religious practices by chronic mentally ill and their caregivers in South India. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 51(2), 139-149.
Palinkas, L. A. (2014). Qualitative and mixed methods in mental health services and implementation research. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 43(6), 851-861.
Ram, D., & Patil, S. (2016). Level of paranormal beliefs and its relationship with explanatory models, treatment adherence and satisfaction. Archives of Clinical Psychiatry (São Paulo), 43(3), 51-55.
Sadath, A., Uthaman, S. P., Shibu Kumar, T. M. (2018). Mental health in tribes: A case report. Indian Journal of Social Psychiatry, 34(2), 187-188.
Sandelowski, M. (2010). What's in a name? Qualitative description revisited. Research in Nursing & Health, 33(1), 77-84.
Saravanan, B., Jacob, K. S., Johnson, S., Prince, M., Bhugra, D., & David, A. S. (2007). Assessing insight in schizophrenia: East meets West. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 190(3), 243-247.
Shankar, B. R., Saravanan, B., & Jacob, K. S. (2006). Explanatory models of common mental disorders among traditional healers and their patients in rural south India. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 52(3), 221-233.
Steinmetz, S.R. (1984). Suicide among primitive peoples. American Anthropologist, 7(1), 53–60.
Thanqadurai, P., Gopalakrishnan, R., Kuruvilla, A., Jacob, K. S., Abraham, V. J., Prasad, J., (2014). Sexual dysfunction among men in secondary care in southern India: nature, prevalence, clinical features and explanatory models. The National Medical Journal of India, 27(4), 198-201.
Thara, R., Islam, A., & Padmavati, R. (1998). Beliefs about mental illness: A study of a rural south India community. International Journal of Mental Health, 27(3), 70-85. Retrieved October 10, 2014.
Schreier, M. (2012). Qualitative content analysis. In U. Flick (Eds.) The sage handbook of qualitative data analysis. Sage Publications: London
Strauss, A., & Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of qualitative research techniques. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publications.
Vidyarthi, L. P., & Rai, B. (1976). 1985. The tribal culture of India. Concept publication: New Delhi.
Viswanathan, S., Prasad, J., Jacob, K. S., & Kuruvilla, A. (2014). Sexual function in women in rural Tamil Nadu: disease, dysfunction, distress and norms. The National Medical Journal of India, 27(1), 4-8.
Wagner, W., Duveen, G., Themel, M., & Verma, J. (1999). The modernization of tradition: thinking about madness in Patna, India. Culture & Psychology, 5(4), 413-445.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 National Journal of Professional Social Work
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
