Knowledge, beliefs and mental treatment seeking practices of Black African and Indian outpatients in Durban, South Africa

Mental illness is a major contributor to the global burden of disease in the world. Patients’ knowledge of mental illness and their treatment options play an important role in the effectiveness of service delivery and health outcomes in developing countries. The objectives of this study were to assess the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of mental health outpatients about mental illness and its treatment, and their knowledge and satisfaction with traditional and Western/allopathic health systems. A self-designed questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge, attitudes and beliefs of mental health patients about mental illness and its treatment. Of the 157 outpatients who identified themselves as having a mental illness, 77.7% were aware of their condition, 33.8% only knew it as a mental illness and 21.5% patients did not know what caused their mental illness. Of the 195 patients interviewed, the majority (76.9%) preferred Western treatment, believing that taking medication would help their condition. Sixty-three patients reported that they did access both Western clinics as well as traditional healers. Overall, the majority of patients (82.5%) expressed satisfaction with their current treatment, with 76.9% indicating preference for consulting a medical practitioner, and 13.8% indicating preference for a traditional healer. Indian and African patients with mental illness attending two urban psychiatric clinics expressed confidence in Western treatment with a minority preferring traditional healing. Future research should focus more exclusively on the various categories of alternative treatment, the healers involved, the reasons for seeking these treatments, the roles that they play in the South African context.Department of HE and Training approved lis

The binary opposition of right and left in Zulu society and culture.

Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1991.No abstract available

Gendered il/legalities of housing formalisation in India and South Africa

Urban interventions, such as state-led housing provision in India and South Africa, establish new legal landscapes for urban residents (formerly slum/informal dwellers), who become home owners, legal occupiers of spaces, ratespayers and visible citizens although not in ways that are necessarily contingent. These material-legal processes are also acutely gendered underscoring wider calls for a feminist approach to legal geographies. Informed by a comparative empirically driven study, this paper explores how in both contexts, urban interventions work to enhance gender equality through improving women’s material shelter in the city, and introduce tenure security, often prioritising very poor women. Yet, their implementation is riddled with slippages as well as operating within a broader poverty–patriarchy nexus. This means that these legally framed benefits have occurred alongside complex and perverse outcomes including unemployment, gendered tensions and acute loss of privacy for some. Housing interventions produce uneven legal geographies, with persisting gendered inequalities and poverty distorting residents’ abilities to benefit from material-legal interventions aimed at improving their lives

Study of W± boson in the ALICE muon spectrometer: considerations and analysis using the HLT tool

W± bosons produced in proton-proton collisions can be observed in the ALICE muon spectrometer via their decay into single muons at a transverse momentum, pt ~ Mw/2 40 GeV/c. However the identification of these single muons is complicated by a large amount of muonic background, especially in the low pt region. Therefore, it is necessary to apply precise pt cuts below the region of interest. This can be done by means of the High Level Trigger (HLT). In this paper we present the performance of detecting high pt muons at the HLT level. In order to improve the momentum resolution of the L0 trigger, fast clusterization of the tracking chambers together with L0 trigger matching and fast tracking reconstruction is applied. This will reduce the background in the high pt muon analysis

The incidence and characteristics of homicides in elderly compared with non-elderly age groups in Johannesburg, South Africa

Background. Even though the rate of eldercide (homicide in the age group ≥60 years) in South Africa (SA) is higher than the global rate, it receives little attention compared with homicide in younger (<60 years) age groups.Objectives. To: (i) establish the proportion and rates of eldercide relative to homicide in young adult and middle-aged populations, and determine whether proportions of homicide across the age groups differ by race; and (ii) determine differences in homicide victim and incident characteristics across the three age categories and establish whether these differences vary by race.Methods. This retrospective study analysed homicide data for adults (aged ≥15 years) drawn from the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System (NIMSS) for the City of Johannesburg, SA (2001 - 2010). Percentages and rates were used to describe the incidence of eldercide (age ≥60 years) relative to homicide in middle age (35 - 59 years) and youth (15 - 34 years). Eldercide and middle-age and youth homicides were compared by sex, race, weapon used, scene of injury, day of the week and time of death.Results. For the 10-year period 2001 - 2010, NIMSS registered a total of 14 678 adult homicide deaths for Johannesburg. Of these, a very small proportion (3.8%) were eldercides, 46.9% were middle-age homicides, and the majority (58.4%) were young adult homicides. The average annual eldercide rate (23.1/100 000) was also lower than the rate for the middle-aged (46.9/100 000) and young adult (58.4/100 000) groups. However, the difference in rates between the age groups decreased considerably over the study period. Race-specific patterns were observed in the distribution of homicide across age groups. Compared with the circumstantial patterns for youth and middle-age homicides, eldercide involved higher proportions of females and white victims, and greater use of blunt force and strangulation. Whereas homicides in the other age groups tended to occur in public spaces and during weekends and nights, eldercides occurred mainly in a home, during the week and during daytime.Conclusions. The characteristics of eldercide differ from those of youth and middle-age homicides. The specificities of the circumstances suggest that interventions should take cognisance of the temporal and spatial dimensions of eldercide and go beyond the regular security and policing measures to ensure the safety of the elderly in Johannesburg.

The incidence and characteristics of homicides in elderly compared with non-elderly age groups in Johannesburg, South Africa

Background. Even though the rate of eldercide (homicide in the age group ≥60 years) in South Africa (SA) is higher than the global rate, it receives little attention compared with homicide in younger (<60 years) age groups. Objectives. To: (i) establish the proportion and rates of eldercide relative to homicide in young adult and middle-aged populations, and determine whether proportions of homicide across the age groups differ by race; and (ii) determine differences in homicide victim and incident characteristics across the three age categories and establish whether these differences vary by race. Methods. This retrospective study analysed homicide data for adults (aged ≥15 years) drawn from the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System (NIMSS) for the City of Johannesburg, SA (2001 - 2010). Percentages and rates were used to describe the incidence of eldercide (age ≥60 years) relative to homicide in middle age (35 - 59 years) and youth (15 - 34 years). Eldercide and middle-age and youth homicides were compared by sex, race, weapon used, scene of injury, day of the week and time of death. Results. For the 10-year period 2001 - 2010, NIMSS registered a total of 14 678 adult homicide deaths for Johannesburg. Of these, a very small proportion (3.8%) were eldercides, 46.9% were middle-age homicides, and the majority (58.4%) were young adult homicides. The average annual eldercide rate (23.1/100 000) was also lower than the rate for the middle-aged (46.9/100 000) and young adult (58.4/100 000) groups. However, the difference in rates between the age groups decreased considerably over the study period. Race-specific patterns were observed in the distribution of homicide across age groups. Compared with the circumstantial patterns for youth and middle-age homicides, eldercide involved higher proportions of females and white victims, and greater use of blunt force and strangulation. Whereas homicides in the other age groups tended to occur in public spaces and during weekends and nights, eldercides occurred mainly in a home, during the week and during daytime. Conclusions. The characteristics of eldercide differ from those of youth and middle-age homicides. The specificities of the circumstances suggest that interventions should take cognisance of the temporal and spatial dimensions of eldercide and go beyond the regular security and policing measures to ensure the safety of the elderly in JohannesburgInstitute for Social and Health Studies (ISHS

The incidence and characteristics of homicides in elderly compared with non-elderly age groups in Johannesburg, South Africa

Background. Even though the rate of eldercide (homicide in the age group ≥60 years) in South Africa (SA) is higher than the global rate, it receives little attention compared with homicide in younger (<60 years) age groups. Objectives. To: (i) establish the proportion and rates of eldercide relative to homicide in young adult and middle-aged populations, and determine whether proportions of homicide across the age groups differ by race; and (ii) determine differences in homicide victim and incident characteristics across the three age categories and establish whether these differences vary by race. Methods. This retrospective study analysed homicide data for adults (aged ≥15 years) drawn from the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System (NIMSS) for the City of Johannesburg, SA (2001 - 2010). Percentages and rates were used to describe the incidence of eldercide (age ≥60 years) relative to homicide in middle age (35 - 59 years) and youth (15 - 34 years). Eldercide and middle-age and youth homicides were compared by sex, race, weapon used, scene of injury, day of the week and time of death. Results. For the 10-year period 2001 - 2010, NIMSS registered a total of 14 678 adult homicide deaths for Johannesburg. Of these, a very small proportion (3.8%) were eldercides, 46.9% were middle-age homicides, and the majority (58.4%) were young adult homicides. The average annual eldercide rate (23.1/100 000) was also lower than the rate for the middle-aged (46.9/100 000) and young adult (58.4/100 000) groups. However, the difference in rates between the age groups decreased considerably over the study period. Race-specific patterns were observed in the distribution of homicide across age groups. Compared with the circumstantial patterns for youth and middle-age homicides, eldercide involved higher proportions of females and white victims, and greater use of blunt force and strangulation. Whereas homicides in the other age groups tended to occur in public spaces and during weekends and nights, eldercides occurred mainly in a home, during the week and during daytime. Conclusions. The characteristics of eldercide differ from those of youth and middle-age homicides. The specificities of the circumstances suggest that interventions should take cognisance of the temporal and spatial dimensions of eldercide and go beyond the regular security and policing measures to ensure the safety of the elderly in Johannesburg.Institute for Social and Health Studies (ISHS

Not entirely displacement: conceptualizing relocation in Ethiopia and South Africa as “disruptive re-placement”

Residents’ lived experiences of movement into state directed housing frequently evidence contradictory outcomes. Often, movement is articulated in terms of displacement, noting its profoundly negative outcomes. However, displacement does not always fully capture contradictions, particularly where housing programmes form part of wider developmental strategies, themselves ambiguous in practice. Adopting a relational analysis, the paper argues for consideration of new sites of settlement relative to previous locations through a critical evaluation of place, as well as accounting for dynamism of urban change over time. Framings must capture residents varied and contradictory lived experiences and the relationality of place experiences. Contributing to work in this field, this paper calls for a broader analytical framing, named here as “disruptive re-placement”. Drawing on two different housing programmes, in South Africa and Ethiopia the paper charts movement into, and living in, state-led housing in three case study areas within three cities. It employs a ‘lived experiences’ methodology to understand these relocations, drawing on residents’ accounts of disruptive re-placement to examine the materialities of planned state-provided formal housing; the spatialities of disruptive re-placement; the economic and socio-political dimensions of these processes and the significance of temporality in shaping disruption. A continuum of disruptive and injurious re-placement, and a critique of the developmental state is used to articulate a just urban agenda in relation to relocation practices

No evidence of an 11.16 MeV 2+ state in 12C

An experiment using the 11B(3He,d)12C reaction was performed at iThemba LABS at an incident energy of 44 MeV and analyzed with a high energy-resolution magnetic spectrometer, to re-investigate states in 12C published in 1971. The original investigation reported the existence of an 11.16 MeV state in 12C that displays a 2+ nature. In the present experiment data were acquired at laboratory angles of 25-, 30- and 35- degrees, to be as close to the c.m. angles of the original measurements where the clearest signature of such a state was observed. These new low background measurements revealed no evidence of the previously reported state at 11.16 MeV in 12C

COVID deaths in South Africa: 99 days since South Africa’s first death

Background. Understanding the pattern of deaths from COVID-19 in South Africa (SA) is critical to identifying individuals at high risk of dying from the disease. The Minister of Health set up a daily reporting mechanism to obtain timeous details of COVID-19 deaths from the provinces to track mortality patterns.Objectives. To provide an epidemiological analysis of the first COVID-19 deaths in SA.Methods. Provincial deaths data from 28 March to 3 July 2020 were cleaned, information on comorbidities was standardised, and data were aggregated into a single data set. Analysis was performed by age, sex, province, date of death and comorbidities.Results. SA reported 3 088 deaths from COVID-19, i.e. an age-standardised death rate of 64.5 (95% confidence interval (CI) 62.3 - 66.8) deaths per million population. Most deaths occurred in Western Cape (65.5%) followed by Eastern Cape (16.8%) and Gauteng (11.3%). The median age of death was 61 years (interquartile range 52 - 71). Males had a 1.5 times higher death rate compared with females. Individuals with two or more comorbidities accounted for 58.6% (95% CI 56.6 - 60.5) of deaths. Hypertension and diabetes were the most common comorbidities reported, and HIV and tuberculosis were more common in individuals aged &lt;50 years.Conclusions. Data collection for COVID-19 deaths in provinces must be standardised. Even though the data had limitations, these findings can be used by the SA government to manage the pandemic and identify individuals who are at high risk of dying from COVID-19