African Immigrant Women and Mental Health
Keywords:
NoneAbstract
Pew Research Center 2015 report stated that 2.1 million African immigrants live in the US (Salem, 2017). Among the African immigrants, Nigerians have the largest population of 348,000 people (Gramlich, 2020). Prior research states that African immigrants are diagnosed with mental health disorders, and their women were of the highest population that do not seek mental health treatment (Anderson, 2015; Lund, 2018; Gberie, 2016). Also, Nigerian immigrant women who experience severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, bipolar mood disorder, and depression do not typically seek help (Collins, 2019). Their reluctance is due to their beliefs, stigma, discrimination, poor access to treatment, lack of resources, and lack of awareness about mental health illness and treatment. They find their coping strategies through religious leaders, traditional and self-care means rather than seeking professional care (Ngui et al., 2011; Lund, 2018; Gberie, 2016). This paper examines why Nigerian immigrant women do not seek mental health care and suggest strategies and recommendations by which healthcare professionals could promote and increase awareness/education to seek mental health treatment. These include improving access to mental health care, promote social support and group therapy, be culturally competent to reduce healthcare disparities and distrust of African immigrant women.
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