The treatment of mental illness in faith-based and traditional healing centres in Ghana: perspectives of service users and healers.

Background: The maltreatment of people with mental illness in Ghana's traditional and faith-based healing centres, including shackling, flogging, and forced fasting, has been documented by numerous sources. Such treatment is potentially traumatising and may exacerbate mental health problems. Despite widespread use, few studies have focused on experiences and characteristics of people who seek traditional healing for mental illness or healers' perspectives treatment of these conditions.

Stakeholders' perspectives about the impact of training and sensitization of traditional and spiritual healers on mental health and illness: A qualitative evaluation in Ghana.

Background: Prayer camps and traditional healers have emerged recently as alternative sources of mental health care in Ghana. To increase their knowledge and collaboration between formal and informal mental health care providers, training and sensitization was organized for them.

Aims: This study aimed at assessing beneficiaries' views about the impact of this intervention.

Sitting with others: mental health self-help groups in northern Ghana.

Background: Over the past four decades, there has been increasing interest in Self-Help Groups, by mental health services users and caregivers, alike. Research in high-income countries suggests that participation in SHGs is associated with decreased use of inpatient facilities, improved social functioning among service users, and decreased caregiver burden. The formation of SHGs has become an important component of mental health programmes operated by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in low-income countries.