Explanatory models of child intellectual disability: Views of caregivers, spiritual healers and traditional healers in Khayelitsha, Cape Town
Date
2021-12
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
Abstract
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: n South Africa healthcare services are not limited to biomedical care. However,
biomedical services for people with intellectual disability (PWID) are still sparse in
South Africa. Lack of sufficient and efficient biomedical services for PWID has
prompted service users to explore alternative non-biomedical approaches for both
their mental and medical healthcare needs. These alternative non-biomedical
approaches include, but are not limited to, traditional and spiritual healing methods.
To achieve this, I used both Kleinman’s Explanatory Models of
illness and Bronfenbrenner’s socioecological model as frameworks to guide the study
for the individual interviews and focus group discussions with caregivers and parents
of children with ID, traditional healers and spiritual healers who resided in an urban
low socio-economic setting in Cape Town. Findings from this study suggest that although there is a universal understanding and
conceptualisation of ID in the Western biomedical professional sector, there are
differences in the understanding, conceptualisation and management of ID in both
popular and folk sectors. In addition, caregivers, parents, traditional healers and
spiritual healers almost all used similar terms to biomedical terms of ID. The majority
of participants from both traditional and spiritual healing methods believed
collaboration with the biomedical sector was possible and desirable, with only a
minority who were not in favour. The lived experiences of carers of children with ID
revealed the struggles, isolation and hardship experienced by families of children
diagnosed with this condition. The physical, economic and social marginalisation of
children and families with ID, given the context of poverty and lack of access to
quality services in which they live, as well as the stigma and lack of understanding of
what ID is, all compounded the difficult experience of raising a child with ID.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar
Description
Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2021.
Keywords
UCTD, Intellectual disability -- Children, Traditional healers, Spiritual healers, Children with mental disabilities -- Caregivers, Children with mental disabilities -- Parents