Role of Traditional Healers in the Pathway to Care of Patients with Childhood Neuropsychiatric Disorders in a Sample of Patients Presenting to Ain Shams University Psychiatry Clinic

Abstract

Help-seeking for children and adolescents is generally led by parents guided by parental perception of the child’s neuropsychiatric complaints, cultural beliefs and inadequate resources with childhood neuropsychiatric illnesses ending up commonly undiagnosed. Moreover, the practice of seeking traditional healer services exposes children to multiple negative outcomes as prolonging DUI (duration of untreated illness) (an important determinant of disease prognosis), decreasing patient adherence to medications, fostering wrong concepts about diseases and exposing patients to non-authorized treatment modalities with increased risk of side effects including high mortality rates. There is a paucity of literature examining the barriers perceived by parents to gaining access to neuropsychiatric services for their children and reasons of resorting to traditional healer services.