BySaadia Akram-Pall

The purpose of this presentation is:

To increase awareness of service providers about the challenges minorities/ethnic population is facing in seeking mental health services

To create some space for traditional/religious and cultural healing practices within mental health services.

Help-seeking process is multidimensional, a professional needs to consider multiple sources to offer comprehensive and appropriate services.

Difficult to have an accurate estimate of psychopathology in minority/ethnic population because of less likelihood of them to seek professional mental health services.

Psychopathology/mental health issues impact every one (ethnic or non ethnic) but the help seeking strategies are different. Ethnic population seek treatment only when symptoms become acute or severe (emergency room visits 22% minorities)

Mostly ethnic population seek traditional/ religious healing practices to find cure for psychopathology. Some of these use western services along with their traditional/religious healing practices without sharing this information with their practitioners which confound/impact the treatment process.

High rate of comorbidity (more than one diagnosis) in ethnic population; untreated mental health problems lead to other issues difficulties in job, marital conflicts, parenting issues, violence and settlement difficulties.

Case Studies