Traditional and faith-based healthcare in the management of psychotic disorders in Africa: in search for synergy.

Purpose Of Review: This review summarizes the current literature on the role of traditional and faith-based healthcare in the management of psychotic disorders in Africa.

Recent Findings: In contemporary Africa, individuals with psychosis and traditional and faith healers (TFH) are pluralistic towards their understanding of psychosis and their help-seeking behaviour. Traditional healing is perceived to be helpful to patients with psychotic disorders and their family members and may have a positive influence on the course of psychosis in some selected individuals.

Course of psychotic experiences and disorders among apprentice traditional health practitioners in rural South Africa: 3-year follow-up study.

Background: Culture is inevitably linked with the experience, interpretation and course of what modern biomedicine understands to be psychotic symptoms. However, data on psychoses in low- and middle-income countries are sparse. Our previous study showed that psychotic and mood-related experiences, symptoms and disorders are common among individuals who had received the ancestral calling to become a traditional health practitioner (THP) in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Psychopathology among apprentice traditional health practitioners: A quantitative study from rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Sociocultural context seems to influence the epidemiology, phenotype, treatment, and course of psychosis. However, data from low- and middle-income countries is sparse. This research is part of a multidisciplinary and multimethod study on possible mental disturbances, including hallucinations, among (apprentice) traditional health practitioners (THPs) who have experienced the "ancestral calling to become a THP" in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Ancestral calling, traditional health practitioner training and mental illness: An ethnographic study from rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

This qualitative ethnographic study complements an epidemiological study on first episode psychosis in Vulindlela, a rural area in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It focuses on two themes that emerged from our data: (1) the calling of the ancestors to become a traditional health practitioner and (2) , the training to become a traditional health practitioner. The purpose of this study is to describe the ancestral calling, and to explore whether may help with the management of mental disturbances, including unusual perceptual experiences.