Browsing by Author "Maritz, Yrika Vanessa"

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    Screening for psychological distress and help-seeking behaviours of Namibian public servants
    (University of Namibia, 2013) Maritz, Yrika Vanessa
    This thesis explores the help-seeking behaviours of a sample of Namibian public servants and their utilisation of the government's Public Service Employees' Medical Aid Scheme (PSEMAS) for their problems related to psychological distress. At present, the PSEMAS covers unlimited treatment interventions to psychologists and other mental health practitioners for those experiencing psychological distress. The PSEMAS fund is presently available as a service benefit to all full-time employees of the public service. Despite the availability of paid psychological treatment, the current expenditure indicates that government employees very rarely seek help from psychologists. Failure to recognise and treat psychological distress leads to various additional problems resulting in extra visits to the general practitioner's (GP's) office. Of the 209 155 PSEMAS members, only 13 900 visited psychologists in 2007/2008 amounting to less than 6% of the current medical aid expenditure for government employees. This exploratory study adopted a mixed-methods approach and was designed in two phases. The first phase of the study which utilised a convenience sample of participants n = 284 was quantitative in nature and aimed at establishing the level of psychological distress as it relates to various socio-demographic characteristics of the sample. The GHQ-28 and a socio-demographic questionnaire were employed as tools for data collection. The second phase of the study relied on the use of qualitative data which was obtained from interviewing a sample of general practitioners n = 5 utilising the constructivist paradigm. The findings of the study point to the fact that a number of socio-demographic characteristics such as language, gender, marital status, age, residential area, education and income levels of public servants are related to psychological distress, help-seeking and utilization of their PSEMAS service benefits. Furthermore, the study concluded that the level of psychological distress is significantly related to seek professional psychological help for people working in the public service.