Health Seeking Behaviour for Mental Health Services:
Abstract
The study was a cross sectional study in which a census was conducted involving 384 household respondents. Data was collected by interviews, questionnaires and documentary review and analyzed by Statistical package for social scientist (SPSS).
The study findings (figure 3); shows that the community members seek treatment for mental illness from traditional healers (54.1%), while 94% (figure 4) consider mental health as a serious health problem largely attributed to curse (37.9%) and witch craft (35.5%) as indicated in figure 3. The study findings in table 4.8 showed, significant variations in source of treatment for mental illness were noted by the variables sex, age, marital status, and occupation (p < 0.05). Regarding marital status, treatment for mental illness in health facilities was less likely among the married (OR = 0.298) and The results further indicate that people aged between 26 and 30 years are less likely to seek treatment from health facilities (OR = 7.745).
It is recommended in this study that there is a need by the government to strengthen the whole health system by providing adequate human and financial resources to conventional mental health services, and distributing such services so that they are more accessible to all populations, particularly in rural areas