Bridging the gap: An effort to collaborate rather compete – Evidence based psychiatric practice with traditional healing methods in a resource limited setting.”

The first point of contact or the only point of contact for most people facing mental health challenges in rural India are the traditional practitioners, faith healers or religious institutions. 90% of individuals seek advice from them before accessing psychiatric services. This cultural inclination presents both challenges and opportunities for mental healthcare delivery in resource – limited settings. The distance between evidence based psychiatric treatment and faith based healing only worsens treatment delays with harmful or suboptimal consequences for patients with serious mental illness. Here we present our experiences as we try to bridge this gap between the faith healing practices and evidence based psychiatric care through hybrid care collaborative models.
We established professional contact with the local faith healers through mutual education, structured dialogues, referral protocols without devaluing their experiences. They also received training in identifying psychiatric symptoms and also symptoms requiring immediate medical care, while our psychiatric team approached the patients respecting their cultural beliefs and practices.
This Collaborative Model showed significant outcomes in multiple domains when compared to traditional healing alone. Patents receiving Collaborative care demonstrated significant positive changes across domains like symptom reduction, quality of life, disability index and reduction in harmful practices. Traditional healers reported enhanced knowledge about mental health conditions and human rights.

Dr Poonam Montadka