3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Perceptions about adolescent body image and eating behaviour(2017) Laxton, KimIntroduction. Eating disorders are an important group of mental illnesses in Psychiatry. The aetiology is multifactorial, developing from distorted beliefs around body image and shape, with resultant abnormal eating behaviours. This study explores the views and perceptions of a group of university students regarding their peers’ body image and shape and eating behaviours, which they experienced (at the time) during their senior high school years. The majority of these students attended high schools in Johannesburg. Method. This was an explorative, qualitative study using qualitative methods. A sample of 153 participants was voluntarily recruited from students in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand. A manually distributed anonymous questionnaire was used, with questions about their high school peers’ personality traits, early and late childhood experiences, eating behaviour, and the last three years of high school environment. Questions in each section were deconstructed and categorised into subthemes. Subthemes were further deconstructed into replicated ideas. These subthemes and ideas were presented in hierarchical tables. Findings in this study were compared with the literature. Results. The most commonly described subtheme of participants’ perceptions of high school peers’ personality traits was “poor self-confidence”. The most replicated subthemes of views on peers’ childhood experiences were “personal conflict with members of the family”, “a disruptive home environment” and “mother’s attitude”. In terms of peers’ eating behaviour, a subtheme on “body shapes” included “fat”, “skinny” and “fit” and “muscular” bodies. In terms of the high school environment, the subtheme of “bullying and peer discrimination” was regarded as important, while “the impact of media” was regarded as extremely important. Fifty percent of participants viewed body image to be important for social status. There were mixed views on whether specific programmes should be introduced to identify pupils at risk. Conclusion. Although bullying and peer pressure have been described as contributing factors in the development of eating behaviour problems in high school learners, as perceived by a group of university students, the most prominent potential contributing factor considered was the media, specifically social media. This finding could contribute to further research looking at the role of social media, not only its relationship in the potential development of a Psychiatric Illness, but possibly, too, its role in the educational and rehabilitation process.Item Glossolalia(1960) Van Eetveldt Vivier, Lincoln MorseThe introduction to the problem covers mainly three sections, namely. Biblical, Historical and Psychological. Various tests are then named and described. This is followed by the section dealing with the Test Results, statistical methods used and finally a summary and conclusion. The summary and conclusion are of necessity brief, and cannot be expected to cover the whole field. Special mention must here be made of & B. Cutten whose book Speaking with Tongues is considered by the present writer to be the most scholarly and extensive account of the historical aspect of GLOSSOLALIA yet systematised. Portions relevant to the present investigation were either quoted in toto or epitomised because the writer felt they could not be improved upon. An intimate knowledge of the historical instances quoted by Cutten is essential to a complete understanding of the scope of the present work. The only originality claimed lies in the selection and presentation of the material to be found in Cutten's invaluable work. Extensive references and/or quotations have also been taken from the works of A. Schweitzer - Mysticism of St. Paul the Apostle and E.B. Tylor - Primitive Culturo, both of whom are regarded as being leaders of thought in their respective fields.Item The attitudes of doctors in South Africa teaching hospitals towards mental illness and psychiatry(2016) Jury, Kerry-Leigh CeciliaIntroduction. Mental illnesses are highly prevalent worldwide. The majority of mentally ill individuals are reintegrated into society where they often encounter stigma and discrimination. Stigmatisation by the community is a well-known and highly researched phenomenon. However, fewer studies have investigated the attitudes of medical doctors towards mental illness and as yet no such study has been done in South Africa. On reviewing the literature it is evident that negative attitudes also exist towards psychiatry as a profession, however to date there is limited data available on this topic. The aim of this study was to determine the attitudes of a group of psychiatric and non-psychiatric doctors towards people with mental illness and towards psychiatry as a profession. Methods. This was a cross-sectional study in the form of a self-administered questionnaire, which was distributed to medical doctors at five teaching hospitals in Gauteng, South Africa. All qualified doctors working at the selected institutions were eligible to participate in the study, regardless of their level of experience or specialist field. The questionnaire investigated their attitudes towards three mental illnesses namely; depression, schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder, and towards psychiatry as a profession. A convenience sampling method was used and two different questionnaires were distributed, one to the psychiatric and the other to the non-psychiatric doctor group. Results. A total of 531 doctors (16.4% psychiatric & 83.6% non-psychiatric) completed the questionnaire. Overall, the doctors’ attitudes were more negative towards persons with schizophrenia and borderline personality disorder than towards those with depression. For all three of the mental illnesses in question more than 50% of the doctors felt that persons would improve with treatment, however less than one third felt that they would ever recover fully. The non psychiatric doctors’ attitudes were more negative towards persons with schizophrenia and depression than the psychiatric doctors, with significantly more non-psychiatrists agreeing that such persons are unpredictable, dangerous and hard to talk to. More than 70% of the psychiatric group felt that non-psychiatric doctors considered psychiatrists to know less than other doctors and psychiatry to be an unimportant specialty. However, less than 11% of the non-psychiatric doctors actually held these negative views. Conclusion. Overall, the doctors in this inquiry did hold negative attitudes towards mental illness. However, the psychiatric doctor group were noted in a number of instances to be significantly more positive in their attitudes towards mental illness than their non-psychiatric colleagues. In addition, a large proportion of the psychiatric doctor group had encountered stigma towards their profession, but it was clear that they have incorrect perceptions with regards to the extent of the non-psychiatric doctors’ negative attitudes towards them and their profession.Item The role of spirituality in South African specialist psychiatric practice and training(2012-01-31) Janse van Rensburg, Albert Bernard-RepsoldIntroduction: An increasingly important role for spirituality has been observed in health, mental health and psychiatry. In South Africa it has become particularly apparent in how the Western scientific biomedical model has increasingly been regarded as only one approach in parallel to local African traditional faith and healing practices. It is currently important for local psychiatrists themselves to consider from within the discipline, as to what they would judge the role of spirituality to be in specialist psychiatric practice and teaching. Methods: This study is an explorative, descriptive, contextual, phenomenological and theorygenerating qualitative investigation. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with individual academic specialist psychiatrists affiliated to a local South African university were conducted as primary data source. Considering selected journal articles from a review of the international literature as secondary data items, the content of the conducted interviews was subsequently compared and integrated with the content of the literature on the subject. A layered grounded analysis was made of the interview and literature content. Final categories of concepts were identified from the integrated content, as well as one single core concept for model construction. The elements of the core concept were defined by determining their dictionary (denotative) and subject (connotative) meaning. Essential and related criteria were established for the definition of each element. A practice-orientated model was developed based on the defined single core concept. The steps adopted for the construction of the model referred in particular to the methodology for nursing theory development. Results: The local interviews and the international literature revealed a strong consensus that the role of spirituality should be incorporated into the current approach to local specialist psychiatry, mainly because of its important role in the lives of people in general. Incorporation of this role should, however, only be considered within the parameters of the professional and ethical scope of the discipline, and with all faith traditions and belief systems accommodated equally. The model accounted for the two-fold nature of this central core concept, by drawing an analogy with the comparable counterbalanced two-directional transportation systems of large trees, to describe the structure and relationships of the elements of the concept. The model was operationalised, providing guidelines for its implementation in different practice and training scenarios. Discussion: The model may contribute to the acknowledgement of, and participation in, the discourse on the place of spirituality in local psychiatry, clinical medicine, health and mental health. Defining terminology, specifically what exactly “spirituality” and “religion” would mean in a particular scenario and for the study, proved to be one of the most critical elements of this investigation. Appropriate guidelines for clinical care, for ethical practice and training, and for the referral of patients to relevant spiritual professionals are necessary. Academic institutions in South Africa may have to reconsider their approach to the training of specialist psychiatry and of clinical medicine in general, in order to account for the currently increasingly important role of defined spirituality in local practice and training.