Mental healthcare-seeking behavior of women in Bangladesh: content analysis of a social media platform

Koly KN 1 , Tasnim Z 2 , Ahmed S 3 , Saba J 4 , Mahmood R 5 , Farin FT 6 Show all authors , Choudhury S 3 , Ashraf MN 5 , Hasan MT 7 , Oloniniyi I 8 , Modasser RB 9 , Reidpath DD 10

Affiliations 

  • 1 Health System and Population Studies Division, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh. [email protected]
  • 2 BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University, Dhaka, 1213, Bangladesh
  • 3 Department of Epidemiology, National Institute of Preventive and Social Medicine (NIPSOM), Dhaka, 1212, Bangladesh
  • 4 Health System and Population Studies Division, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b), Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • 5 Department of Public Health, North South University, Dhaka, 1229, Bangladesh
  • 6 Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA
  • 7 Action Lab, Department of Human Centred Computing, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
  • 8 Departmental of Mental Health, Faculty of Clinical Sciences, College of Health Sciences, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria
  • 9 School of Public Health, Independent University Bangladesh (IUB), Bashundhara, Dhaka, 1229, Bangladesh
  • 10 Jeffrey Cheah School of Medicine and Health Sciences, Monash University, Subang Jaya, Malaysia
BMC Psychiatry, 2022 Dec 19;22(1):797.
PMID: 36529761 DOI: 10.1186/s12888-022-04414-z

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Mental health remains a highly stigmatized area of healthcare, and people often conceal their concerns rather than seek assistance or treatment. The Women Support Initiative Forum (WSIF) is a social media platform established in 2018 to provide expert and peer-led psychosocial support services to women of all ages in Bangladesh. The anonymous nature of the forum means that mental health concerns can be aired without fear of identification.

METHOD: A content analysis was conducted on the anonymous posts retrieved from the WSIF platform between 8th March 2020 and 7th July 2022. Around 1457 posts were initially selected for analysis which was reduced to 1006 after removing duplicates and non-relevant posts, such as queries about the addresses of the doctors and other non-mental health-related issues. A thematic analysis of the data was conducted using an inductive approach.

RESULT: The 1006 posts generated four themes and nine sub-themes. All the women mentioned mental health symptoms (n = 1006; 100%). Most also mentioned reasons for seeking mental healthcare (n = 818; 81.31%), healthcare-seeking behavior (n = 667; 66.30%), and barriers to seeking mental healthcare (n = 552; 54.87%). The majority of women described symptoms of stress, depression, and anxiety-like symptoms, which were aggregated under common mental health conditions. Mental health symptoms were ascribed to various external influences, including marital relationship, intrafamilial abuse, and insecurities related to the COVID-19 pandemic. A large proportion of posts were related to women seeking information about mental healthcare services and service providers (psychologists or psychiatrists). The analysis found that most women did not obtain mental healthcare services despite their externalized mental health symptoms. The posts identified clear barriers to women accessing mental health services, including low mental health literacy, the stigma associated with mental healthcare-seeking behavior, and the poor availability of mental health care services.

CONCLUSION: The study revealed that raising mass awareness and designing culturally acceptable evidence-based interventions with multisectoral collaborations are crucial to ensuring better mental healthcare coverage for women in Bangladesh.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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