Exploring South African Indian men’s understanding of depression

Abstract

Background: Depression is reported as one of the most common mental disorders. Research on Indian men’s understandings of depression is limited.

Aim: The authors aimed to explore South African Indian men’s understanding of depression in a community, and how this guides help-seeking behaviour.

Setting: Community dwelling participants in Gauteng, South Africa.

Methods: An exploratory qualitative design was employed and a purposive sampling method was used to recruit participants. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven Indian adult men and analysed using thematic analysis.

Results: The findings of this study yielded a total of six themes. These included understanding of depression, depression is taboo, diverging gender role expectations and depression, help-seeking behaviour, barriers to help-seeking, and mental health community support.

Conclusion: The findings suggest a lack of understanding and awareness of depression among participants and discussions around mental illness being regarded as taboo. Gender roles and societal expectations were considered as one of the contributors to depression onset. Coping and help-seeking behaviour included adaptive and maladaptive coping mechanisms with professional psychological help being least prioritised. Self-stigmatisation and fear of discrimination were highlighted as barriers to help-seeking behaviours.

Contribution: This study contributed to the limited body of knowledge on understanding of depression among Indian men in South Africa and highlighted the importance of mental health awareness campaigns and professional help-seeking behaviour.