The spiritual factors influencing health-seeking behaviour among the Seventh Day Adventist group members in Tshwane Gauteng Province

Abstract

The development of spiritual factors influencing health seeking behaviour has had an increasing recognition within the contemporary western medicine, making the approach of spirituality through health seeking behaviour go beyond the state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. The influence of spiritual factors is often readily available and accessible to potential patients, which can make other treatments, such as the bio-western medicine be disregarded due to the long distances and the encountering of longer waiting times to access health care. However, the value of spirituality in an individual and community’s life can be effective but with limited effectiveness of therapeutic modalities such a prayer. Even though, some people will rather resort to spiritual health seeking behaviour as their first choice in different cultures and it is, therefore, believed for its potency. This has then allowed for a gap for social workers to increase their knowledge of understanding of their patient’s spiritual beliefs as an aspect of their lives that can be integrated in providing the suitable treatment. The conducted study explored and described the spiritual factors influencing the health seeking behaviour among the Seventh Day Adventist group members in Tshwane municipality in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. The conducted study followed a qualitative approach which was used and directed the research study. A case study design was selected and used in this qualitative study to explore the spiritual factors influencing health seeking behaviour among the Seventh Day Adventist group members in Tshwane. The research study used the purposive and snowballing sampling technique and semi-structured interview guide with open-ended questions, through telephonic online interviews that were used to collect data for the study due to the Covid-19 regulations. Ten interviews were conducted with Seventh Day Adventist group members in the Tshwane municipality in Gauteng, whereby all ten participants were from the Seventh Day Adventist. The researcher reported on all ten participants who participated in the conducted study, which did not include the pilot study that was done prior the actual study. The findings indicated that participants of the Seventh Day Adventist members have knowledge and understanding of health seeking behaviour, through having familiar spiritual practices, engaging in preventative practices to keep healthy, understanding the value of spirituality both in their personal and community life. The findings also indicated that the influence of spirituality in their family home, when seeking health care, focusing on the accessibility and affordability of the health care services that were affordable and possible for most of the participants without struggle. Lastly, the findings also displayed the importance of the social worker’s involvement in understanding the patient’s spirituality to make valuable assessment to meet their needs and treatment. The study concludes that the Seventh Day Adventist members do understand health care seeking behaviour in terms of their spiritual factors influencing them. It can also be concluded that the lack of the use of referrals to social workers for psychosocial services can have a negative impact on the members to be advocated for their spirituality during a time of ill health. Recommendations in the conducted study include that the social worker must be competent enough to understand the spirituality of patients in order to provide adequate psychosocial services from a holistic point of view and also realise the need to incorporate a social worker in the medical health care system to fulfil the patient’s spiritual needs.