Table 2 Barriers to the provision of maternal mental health
Sub-theme | Quote | |
|---|---|---|
Lack of time | Q 10 | “… everybody wants to deal with the more … organic things … because the outpatient department is choked, you must see as many people as you can … “(A13, KII, Doctor) |
Q 11 | “But we don’t spend much time with the patient, so you don’t get to see their worries...” (A6, KII, Doctor) | |
Q 12 | “So, you just have so many [patients] at a time, that there’s no time to really give that kind of care that you should. We know we should be giving it, but we don’t give it, there’s really no time to do that …” (A11, KII, Doctor) | |
Lack of staff | Q 13 | “… we need more doctors so that the workload will come down, then one can have enough time, addressing mental issue … but one doesn’t have a luxury to do it …” (A10, KII, Doctor) |
Q 14 | “… everybody is stressed, even the doctor! How can a stressed person look after somebody who is stressed?” (A6, KII, Doctor) | |
Lack of education | Q 15 | “We don’t take psychiatry serious at all … even in medical school …” (A6, KII, Doctor) |
Q 16 | “I don’t think mental health has really been one of those things that is commonly taught … part of our training which is dedicated to mental health is small.” (A4, KII, Doctor) | |
Stigma | Q 17 | “… mental health comes with some stigma” (A8, KII, Doctor) |
Q 18 | “… you see we live in a society where mental health is being stigmatised … people who have mental problems are stigmatized …” (A18, KII, Doctor) | |
Q 19 | “… most people want to [help] but the fear of stigma wouldn’t allow them to do it” (E, FGD, Junior nurse-midwife) | |
Q 20 | “… you see because we live in a society where mental health is being stigmatised people who have mental problems they are being stigmatized, so, to go and discuss something like that with the person … they might think that you are tagging her as having a mental problem.” (A18, KII, Doctor) | |
Q 21 | “The first impression that comes to your mind when you hear mental health is hmm …. ‘this person is not in the right mind’ yeah, so it comes with its own stigma.” (A8, KII, Doctor) | |
Cultural beliefs | Q 22 | “… they attribute it to these spiritual things, so most of the cases won’t come to the hospital … unless of course they realise, maybe, it’s getting out of hand and then they go to the pastor …” (E, FGD, Junior nurse-midwife) |
Q 23 | “… [if] you’re crying more or you’re behaving differently than somebody else … they would consider it as … of spiritual origin...” (A11, KII, Doctor) | |
Q 24 | “the perception about schizophrenia was that people are ‘mad’ because that’s when they hallucinate, they hear auditory hallucinations and visual hallucinations they have paranoia and all that.” (A8, KII, Doctor) | |
Q 25 | “...in our part of the world, nobody would like to be called a ‘mad man or mad woman’, so we have to be tactful...” (A2, KII, Doctor) | |