Exploring help seeking experiences of people from black and ethnic minority backgrounds with psychosis

Abstract

Experiences of psychosis are typically associated with auditory and/or visual hallucinations, emotional disturbances, delusions, disorganised thinking and speech. People from Black and ethnic minority backgrounds are more likely to have a high prevalence of psychosis when compared to their White counterparts. Research has also illustrated that there are clear racial and ethnic disparities related to accessing support for psychosis. There is a need to explore the experiences of people of a Global Majority when seeking help for psychosis and understand the barriers and facilitators that underlie this process.

The first chapter of this thesis is a systematic review conducted to systematically identify and analyse qualitative research on the barriers and facilitators to accessing psychological therapies for people from an ethnic minority background, with an experience of psychosis. Nine qualitative studies were included in the review and a thematic synthesis revealed four themes: ‘stigma and shame,’ ‘accessing support from non-clinical sources’, ‘negative experiences of therapists and wider services’ and ‘perceived benefits of psychological therapies and accessibility issues’. The findings from the review highlight the importance of understanding the barrier and facilitators to accessing psychological therapies to improve experiences within services and reduce the disparities of the uptake of psychological therapies for people from a Global Majority, with psychosis.

The second chapter focuses on the empirical study which explored the experiences of help seeking for people from Black African and Caribbean backgrounds. Fourteen participants were interviewed and four main themes were identified from the thematic analysis. The findings illustrate that the pathways taken by Black people to seek help and support for long term psychosis are multifaceted. Findings suggested that people from Black backgrounds sought support from different sources in order to manage their long-term psychosis (e.g., from family and friends, religious and spiritual practices, community organisations). The study highlights important clinical implications for services to improve.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Christabella Van Laarhoven: orcid.org/0009-0007-3472-6669

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