Psychiatry in Zimbabwe

Like many developing countries, Zimbabwe has a shortage of trained mental health professionals. The country is coping by developing an expanded role for nurses and other nonphysician mental health workers and by emphasizing use of medication in treating mental illnesses. The authors review traditional Zimbabwean beliefs about mental illness and healing and describe culturally specific patterns of illness presentation. To reverse the historic pattern in which psychiatric care was centralized in cities, Zimbabwe is establishing a countrywide system of primary health clinics, part of whose role is to screen and treat common mental disorders, educate communities about mental illness, and promote prevention of illness.