Views of traditional healers on collaboration with health professionals when managing epilepsy in rural areas of Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces (South Africa)

Abstract

Objective: to explore traditional healers’ views on epilepsy management in collaboration with health professionals in South Africa rural communities.Material and methods. A qualitative research approach using explorative, descriptive and contextual designs was adopted for the study in Limpopo and Mpumalanga Provinces. Non-probability, snowball purposive sampling was used to sample 20 traditional healers. Data were collected through in-depth individual interviews at the participants’ homes and analysed using Tesch's eight steps of open coding data analysis.Results. Findings revealed two themes, namely: a perspective on collaboration in epilepsy treatment and strategies to enhance its implementation. Most traditional healers were unaware of the official collaboration in managing epilepsy. When they found out about it, most of them were willing to collaborate with health professionals.Conclusion. There is a need to strengthen mutual respect, open dialogue, mutual referral and capacity building to achieve collaboration in managing epilepsy effectively.

Keywords

• epilepsy
• collaboration
• traditional healers
• health professionals
• epilepsy management