Views on traditional healing: Implications for integration of traditional healing and Western medicine in South Africa

Abstract

There are two independent streams of health care in South Africa: traditional healing and Western medicine. Proposals to formally integrate the two streams have been made by the World Health Organization and by the South African Department of Health. In this study, the philosophical background behind each of the two health care models is discussed, as well as literature on the possible integration of the two systems. It has not been clear if Western-trained health-care practitioners would be prepared to work with traditional healers. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine health care practitioners’ opinions, attitudes, knowledge and experiences with traditional healers, and to determine to what extent these variables would predict their intentions to work with these healers. A Within-Stage Mixed Model design was used, and data were collected using a selfdeveloped questionnaire. A total of 319 health care practitioners from State hospitals and clinics in Gauteng and Limpopo provinces participated in the study. The results of the study revealed significant differences between groups of health care practitioners in terms of their opinions, attitudes, experiences and intentions to work with traditional healers. Psychiatric nurses and psychiatrists showed more positive opinions, more positive attitudes, more knowledge and more willingness to work with traditional healers than do general nurses and physicians. Psychiatric and general nurses also had more experiences with traditional healing than did psychiatrists and physicians. The results also revealed that attitudes, knowledge, opinions and experiences predict Western health care practitioners’ intentions to work with traditional healers, with attitudes being the strongest and experiences the weakest predictors. Health care practitioners’ views of traditional healing were contradictory and ambivalent in many instances. This implies that integration of the two health care systems will be complex, that the current potential to integrate the systems is weak and that such integration can only be realised with considerable effort from all stakeholders.