Exploring depression symptoms in chronic care users in Dr Kenneth Kaunda for culturally relevant counselling

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Exploring depression symptoms in chronic care users in Dr Kenneth Kaunda for culturally relevant counselling
 
Creator Selohilwe, One M. Kathree, Tasneem Bhana, Arvin Petersen, Inge
 
Subject — contextually relevant interventions; depression; lay-health workers; South Africa; task sharing
Description Background: South Africa is faced with a mental health burden attributed to a large treatment gap for common mental disorders (CMDs), and a shortage of mental health professionals. Although comorbidity of CMDs with chronic diseases is common, chronic and non-communicable diseases may receive more attention than CMDs highlighting the need for contextually appropriate, culturally relevant counselling to increase access to mental healthcare for CMDs at primary health care (PHC).Aim: To explore the experiences of patients with comorbid chronic medical conditions and depression attending PHC, to inform the adaptation of an existing evidence-based lay counselling intervention developed in South Africa for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-positive patients.Setting: Dr Kenneth Kaunda district, North West province, South Africa.Methods: Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 16 Sestwana speaking adult chronic care patients with hypertension and HIV who screened positive for depressive symptoms using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), to explore their lived experiences of depression.Results: Poor understanding of depression and poor mental health literacy were highlighted. Depressive symptoms were commonly associated with social determinants including poverty, interpersonal conflict, stigma, illness and grief and bereavement. Most participants were unaware of available depression treatments.Conclusion: Psychoeducation to improve mental health literacy, cognitive behavioural interventions and problem-solving techniques using task sharing are recommended.Contribution: There is limited evidence of explanatory models for depression among this population in South Africa. To our knowledge, this is the only study that focused on a predominantly Setswana-speaking chronic care adult population with comorbid depression.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor UK- Department for International Development
Date 2025-09-23
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/phcfm.v17i1.4958
 
Source African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 17, No 1 (2025); 9 pages 2071-2936 2071-2928
 
Language eng
 
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The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/4958/8633 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/4958/8634 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/4958/8635 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/4958/8636
 
Coverage — — —
Rights Copyright (c) 2025 One M. Selohilwe, Tasneem Kathree, Arvin Bhana, Inge Petersen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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