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Social support as a
panacea for mental illness: A study of Nigerian immigrants
in Braamfontein, Johannesburg
Adeagbo Oluwafemi
Africa
Center for Migration and Society, University of the
Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa WITS 2050. E-mail:
femiadex@yahoo.co.uk. Tel: +27785826991.
Accepted
15 July, 2011 |
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This
paper synthesizes some literatures in the field of Public
Health and Migration as well as fieldworks on Nigerian
immigrants in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. Some of the
existing literatures support the view that social contacts
tend to reduce post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in
refugees, and identified unemployment, lack of access to
health care, lack of basic amenities and ‘poverty' as the
major determinants of physical and mental health of refugees
in the host communities. But, less/no attention is given to
the mental illness of economic migrants in their host
countries. This paper shows the study of Nigerian immigrants
in South Africa with mental illness due to unemployment,
distress, lack of accommodation, inaccessibility to good
health care and in all, segregation from the Nigerian
community. This paper argues that social support tend to
reduce mental illness in a person (whether immigrant or
native) if only if an individual reciprocates as a member of
such group. This study applied ethnographic fieldwork,
participant observation and semi-structured interviews to
collect data among fifteen Nigerian immigrants (males) in
Braamfontein in order to show the positive influence of
social networks as well as the negative influence of what is
this study refer to as "self social alienation" among
members of this group in relation to mental illness.
Key
words:
Mental illness, post traumatic stress disorder, Nigerian
immigrants, social contacts, self social alienation.
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