Despite the indubitable cohesiveness of their community life, Nigerian psychiatric patients had social networks with deficiencies not dissimilar to those reported for patients in the industrialised societies. Interactions between these Nigerian patients as focal persons and other members of their network, were found to be intense, but seemed to lack a strong affectional core. As expected, the separated, and the divorced patients scored less than the married patients on intensity of social relationships, but the two groups were not significantly different on all other network parameters examined.
These findings should constitute a substratum of a kinship community-based counselling service with the goal of providing individual-oriented support for the psychiatrically disabled persons. It is believed that this may be realised by the relevant training and utilisation of para-professionals; effective liaison with families and special attention to prevailing concepts and socio-cultural norms.
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