Examining beliefs about mental illness among African Canadian women

This paper examines how social constructs such as race, culture, gender, age, socioeconomic status, educational level, language and immigrant status influence the ideologies, beliefs and attitudes that many African Canadian women hold about “mental illness”, symptom presentation and treatment. In this paper, interview data from six informants, two of whom speak about their emotional and mental health problems are provided. The remaining four informants were mental health professionals who provided additional data on many of their African Canadian female patients experiences in dealing with mental health problems. Standardized interview guides were used with each informant. Interviews lasted approximately one hour and thirty minutes. The data were analyzed by using a categorization system that was based on themes arising out of the author’s earlier research