Mental health literacy: conceptions of mental illness among African residents of Sisonke District in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

The prevalence of mental illness is on the rise, and there are many people with chronic or severe mental disorders who are unaware that they have a diagnosable disorder. It is plausible that this is largely because of the public's non-alignment with biomedical understandings of mental illness which may imply a lack of mental health literacy. This study investigated conceptions and aetiological beliefs about mental illness among 787 randomly selected African residents of Sisonke District using a survey. The results show that participants did not use standard psychological nomenclature to describe mental illness, but instead used very broad, over-encompassing terms which may be indicative of their worldview. Of the three disorders investigated, depression was mainly conceptualised using psychological and medical terms, and schizophrenia and alcohol dependency were conceptualised in psychological and social terms. In addition, only schizophrenia, among the three disorders investigated, was conceptualised using supernatural descriptions such as bewitchment and ukuthwasa. The findings of this study highlight the importance of awareness campaigns that take into consideration and respect the cultural differences of the people as well as collaboration between traditional and medical practitioners.