Prevalence of psychiatric disorders among visitors to faith healers in Saudi Arabia

Authors

  • Fahad D Alosaimi Assistant professor, King Saud University, Riyadh, SA
  • Youssef Alshehri
  • Ibrahim Alfraih
  • Ayedh Alghamdi
  • Saleh Aldahash
  • Haifa Alkhuzayem
  • Haneen Albeeeshi

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.305.5434

Keywords:

Faith Healing, Spiritual Therapies, Mental Disorders.

Abstract

Objective: We investigated the prevalence of psychiatric disorders among visitors to Faith Healers (FHs) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We also studied the sociodemographic profiles for these visitors, in addition to their past psychiatric history, reason(s) for seeking FH help, and past and current treatment experience with FHs.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among the visitors (n=321) to a number of faith healing settings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia using a specially designed questionnaire and validated Arabic version of The Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview.

Results: Most of the participants were young adults (35.1

Author Biography

Fahad D Alosaimi, Assistant professor, King Saud University, Riyadh, SA

Fahad Alosaimi, MD

Psychiatrist & Psychosomatic medicine consultant, King Khalid university hospital Assistant professor, King Saud University, Riyadh

Downloads

Additional Files

Published

2014-08-07

How to Cite

Alosaimi, F. D., Alshehri, Y., Alfraih, I., Alghamdi, A., Aldahash, S., Alkhuzayem, H., & Albeeeshi, H. (2014). Prevalence of psychiatric disorders among visitors to faith healers in Saudi Arabia. Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences, 30(5). https://doi.org/10.12669/pjms.305.5434

Issue

Vol. 30 No. 5 (2014): September – October 2014 Pak J Med Sci

Section

Original Articles