Pediatric Cultural Health Attributions Questionnaire

Stereotypes on Nodding syndrome: responses of health workers in the affected region of northern Uganda

“…When health workers hold causation views such as a disease is caused by "evil spirits" and or "curses from the dead", given their privileged position in society, they may propagate such views to the community through their communications with the patients and their families and directly through their interactions as members of the affected communities .This may lead to behaviours that may be self-destructive. The notion of a god or deity being responsible for a disease or ailment and more or less as retribution for an offense stigmatizes the people struggling with the illness by putting the blames for their sickness upon misbehaviours, while presupposing that those without the disease in question are free of the sin that brought forth the disease upon the affected 26,27 . In the case of Northern Uganda which is just recovering from more than twenty years of armed conflict and where the community had animosity about the failure of the government of Uganda in protecting them 19,20,28,29 , such futility and "blame game" views by the health workers working in the public health sector may result in a sense of hopelessness and lack of trust in efforts by the government and development partners in the fight against the syndrome.…”