The role of traditional healers and barriers to collaboration with biomedical providers in mental health service delivery in Wakiso district, Uganda: a qualitative study

TL;DR

This study explores how traditional healers and biomedical providers in Uganda can better work together to improve mental health care.

Contribution

The study identifies barriers to collaboration and highlights the role of traditional healers in mental health service delivery in Uganda.

Findings

Traditional healers help improve access to mental health services through affordability and community trust.

Barriers to collaboration include non-inclusive policies, power imbalances, and limited funding for mental health research.

Abstract

Mental health remains a low priority issue in many low- and middle-income countries where both biomedical practitioners and traditional healers provide essential services. While the collaboration between these two types of providers is essential for comprehensive care, their integration within Uganda’s mental health service delivery system remains insufficient. This study therefore explored collaboration between biomedical and traditional providers in mental health service delivery in Wakiso district, Uganda.

We conducted a qualitative study that employed key informant interviews to collect data. Thirty-four (34) key informants including 15 biomedical practitioners, 11 traditional healers, and 8 national level stakeholders such as policy makers participated in the study. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed. Thematic analysis was conducted with the support of NVivo 2020 (QSR International).

Two main themes emerged from the study: the role of traditional healers in the mental health service delivery; and challenges affecting collaboration of traditional healers and biomedical practitioners. The study established that although not fully recognised, traditional healers played an important role in mental health through easing access to health services, affordability of their services, and the trust that communities had in traditional medicine. Non-inclusive mental health policy, power imbalances, and limited funding for mental health research were the main challenges identified regarding the collaboration between traditional healers and biomedical practitioners in mental health service provision.

Traditional healers are actively involved in mental health service provision in Uganda. Collaboration between traditional healers and biomedical practitioners could be enhanced by various stakeholders including policy makers recognising the contribution of traditional medicine, ensuring inclusive mental health policies, and increased resources for mental health research.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12913-026-14170-5.