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Aspects of Clinical Psychiatry in Sub-Saharan Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

G. Allen German
G. Allen German*
Affiliation:
Makerere University, P.O. Box 7072, Kampala, Uganda, East Africa
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Extract

Baan was referring to the underdeveloped world, or the ‘third world’ as it is often called. This review is concerned with psychiatry in a small part of it—Sub-Saharan Africa—that part of the African continent inhabited by black Africans. At the time of writing, the term is used more specifically to describe independent black Africa, excluding South Africa—hence a bloc of cultures and sub-cultures with ethnic, economic, religious and customary patterns very different from those of the continents of Europe and North America where the bulk of current data and theory about psychiatric disorders has been obtained and expanded. In view of such major differences in factors long thought to influence the occurrence and nature of psychiatric illnesses, the patterns of these disorders in Sub-Saharan Africa are important in clarifying theories about psychiatric disease despite the paucity of adequate research carried out to date.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 121 , Issue 564 , November 1972 , pp. 461 - 479
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1972 

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