{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.010762331838565023, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.165745856353591, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Traditional Health Healers, Mental Illness and Substance Abuse: A Study Among Hausa-Fulani of Jigawa State in Nigeria

ABSTRACT The traditional healers play a key role in healing the health problems of communities by using the parts of plants and animal products in Nigeria. The natives are in favour of traditional medicine in curing their health problems related to mental illness and drug addiction. Mental and drug abuse-related illnesses in some cultures are believed to be as a result of spiritual and family misfortune and only traditional healers have a solution. The study investigates the role of traditional healers in curing illnesses of local communities and drug addicts. An interview schedule was employed to collect data from mentally sick patients and focus group discussion was conducted with traditional healers to elicit the information. The present study revealed that the traditional health healers were well accepted by the communities. Hence, it is recommended that the integration of traditional healers in the conventional health care system in Nigeria is useful to make society healthier.