In Namibia, mental health is considered as a low priority health concern hence resources are
instead diverted to life threatening illnesses. Furthermore, it is estimated that about 15% of the
Namibian population suffers from mental health, with schizophrenia being the most common
mental disorder. Despite the limited resources, The Ministry of Health and Social Services
seeks to promote the extension of health for the care of people living with mental disorders to
the family and community at large; however, such services are not yet in existence.
Consequently, the responsibility of caring for the mental health users is shifted to the family
caregivers who tend to be negatively affected. Additionally, only a few mental health users
receive adequate mental health services and this places even more burden on the caregivers
(MoHSS, 2005:5; MoHSS, 2010:13).
It is against this background that the present study was conducted. The goal of the study was to
explore the experiences among the caregivers of mental health users with schizophrenia in the
Nankudu District, Namibia. The study was explorative in nature hence the qualitative research
approach was used. Furthermore, the study adopted the case study design to explore the lives
of caregivers in a modern restricted system through interviews to gain in-depth data and to
understand of their lives. One on one, semi structured interviews were used to collect data from
ten caregivers of mental health users with schizophrenia in Nankudu district. The purposive
sampling method was used to select the participants for the study.
The findings revealed that the caregivers experience physical, psychological, emotional, social
and financial burden as a result of their caregiving roles and responsibilities towards the mental
health users. The psychotic episodes for instance were negative experiences for all the
caregivers. The caregivers adopted various roles and responsibilities towards the care of
persons with schizophrenia such as overall involvement in their treatment plan, seeking for alternative traditional medicine and daily functional support of the mental health users.
Moreover, they also experienced stigma from the community members and it constituted to
more social and psychological effects. The study further revealed the lack of community based
mental health care services and social work services for the mental health users and caregivers.
Subsequently, the caregivers rely on other family members, friends and neighbours and
interestingly, police officers for support. The study also highlighted some positive experiences
encountered by caregivers such as acceptance of their caregiving role, good support system
and the mental health user’s adherence to medication and recovery.
Due to the highlighted findings, it is recommended that the Ministry of Health and Social
Services should establish and implement family psychoeducational programmes for the
caregivers and mental health users with schizophrenia to ensure their active involvement in the
treatment plan, improve the quality of care and their well-being. Moreover, the Ministry of Health
and Social Services should expedite the implementation of community based mental health
services to offer support to the mental health users and caregivers as highlighted in the National
Mental Health policy. Lastly, health professionals such as Social Workers should provide
continuous psychosocial support to the caregivers in order to help them to address their
negative experiences. / Dissertation (MSW (Health care))--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Social Work and Criminology / MSW (Health care) / Unrestricted
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:up/oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/76735 |
| Date | January 2019 |
| Creators | Mudumbi, Veronika |
| Contributors | Bila, Nontembeko, u17276919@tuks.co.za |
| Publisher | University of Pretoria |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Rights | © 2020 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. |
Page generated in 0.0021 seconds