The voices not heard: thematic analysis of asylum seekers’ explanatory models of mental illness as elicited by the Cultural Formulation Interview

Abstract

Background Asylum seekers have difficulty gaining access to mental healthcare. Lack of understanding of asylum seekers’ mental illness explanatory models appears to be an important barrier. Gaining a better understanding of these explanatory models is crucial for ensuring the inclusion of asylum seekers in healthcare services. The Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) might help to explore asylum seekers’ explanatory models of mental illness. Aims To analyse asylum seekers’ explanatory models as elicited by the CFI. Methods The CFI and its first supplementary module were carried out with asylum seekers with mental health problems. Transcriptions of the interviews underwent reflexive thematic analysis within a social constructivist framework. Results In the analysis of 25 illness narratives, three major themes characterising asylum seekers’ explanatory models were identified: a burden of the past, a disenabling current reality, and a personal position and individual experience. Conclusions The interplay among pre-, peri- and post-migration experiences, having a continuous impact on asylum seekers’ mental health, was highlighted by the themes ‘a burden of the past’, and ‘a disenabling current reality’. The theme ‘a personal position and individual experience’ revealed how the CFI enables self-determination in clinical encounters by embracing uncertainty and questioning the medicalisation of distress. The analysis characterises asylum seekers’ symptoms as a personal idiom of distress within socio-relational contexts. The CFI provides a clinically useful framework for exploring asylum seekers’ explanatory models and fostering dynamic understanding.

Keywords

• Asylum seekers
• cultural formulation interview
• explanatory models
• thematic analysis
• mental health