Providing Mental Healthcare through Faith-based Entities in Africa: A Systematic Review

By Dr. Nadine Nanji and Dr. Jill Olivier of the University of Cape Town

This article, published in the Christian Journal for Global Health, shares the results of a review of evidence on faith-based health providers of mental health services in Africa looking at types, magnitude, and quality, and included both peer-reviewed and grey literature, published between 2007 and 2024. A mixed-methods systematic review was conducted in two phases to synthesize qualitative and quantitative data.

The review identified 55 relevant items from 13 African countries, showing that faith-based mental health providers deliver a range of six types of alternative mental health care, faith-based home care and faith-based biomedical mental health care. The author advises leveraging culturally influenced practices for mental health care that faith-based care offers, and integrating faith-based mental health care into primary health system to attain universal health coverage. However, there are limitations regarding the vast array of faith-based health providers and the mental health care they provide, which include harmful practices used in Africa. Training interventions are recommended to avoid these practices.