Ghana has been on the cutting edge of working to assure accessible and affordable healthcare in Africa, including at least to a degree in the area of mental health. Ghana was one of sub-Saha-ran Africa’s first countries to enact mental health legislation, and the World Health Organization (WHO) describes Ghana’s Mental Health Act as one of the continent’s best. Faith actors and communities play significant roles in Ghana’s mental health landscape; they provide mental health services, influence and shape public attitudes toward mental health, and support initiatives of various scales that address specific mental health-linked challenges (such as homelessness or postpartum depression). Faith healers and prayer camps, primarily coming with a Pentecostal background, are a widespread, accessible, and affordable treatment option. There are controversies surrounding faith approaches to mental health, including concerns about human rights violations.
This note casts a preliminary look at how faith actors are involved in mental health in Ghana, drawing on a brief review of Ghana’s mental healthcare landscape. The brief aims to set the stage to explore deeper questions, including how greater understanding and collaboration between biomedical care and forms of treatment linked to religious practices and approach might enrich the scope and content of psychiatric care in Ghana. It first provides an overview of the mental health landscape in Ghana, including bio-medical care, faith-based treatment, and local and
international NGOs and FBOs that address mental health issues. It highlights progress and challenges facing the mental healthcare sector and suggests areas of opportunity for greater collaboration between faith actors and healthcare professionals.
