CULTURE AND CHILD PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS: A Nigerian Perspective

Abstract

This article has reviewed some critical aspects of the sociocultural framework informing the life and health of Nigerian children and adolescents. Expectations on individual and social functioning and on the role of extended families have been highlighted. Cultural influences on the manner and circumstances of assessing health problems and on development, presentation, and course of child psychiatric disorders have been outlined. Approaches and strategies for therapeutic invention have been summarized, with attention given to primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, and to the organization of therapy and counseling aimed at satisfying goals and needs of children and adolescents in Nigeria. Even just adequate epidemiologic data, ordinarily considered to be the hallmark of evidence-based scientific statements on child and adolescent psychiatric disorders, are infrequent in Africa in general, and in Nigeria in particular, because of sociopolitical and dire economic factors. The latter affects the availability of resource personnel and results in lack of infrastructural facilities, which are needed for the identification of accurate health indicators in the continent. The challenge is, therefore, great. Local officials, psychiatrists, and other mental health professionals must work in partnership with each other and with international institutions such as the World Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization to advance the study of the cultural framework of illness and health towards upgrading clinical care and health promotion of children and adolescents in Nigeria, and more generally, in the whole of Africa.