A Content Analysis of Mental Health Issues and Cases Reported In the Ghanaian Media

Abstract

Background: Mental health and well-being are integral to the function of individuals. Mental disorders are usually affected with stigma and victims discriminated against. This is fuelled by distorted and inaccurate information on mental illness. The media is an important agency with great influence in providing mental health information and shaping public perception. This study therefore, sought to analyse the stories on mental health issues reported in the Ghanaian media. Methods: The study used both quantitative and qualitative approaches to analyse mental health stories. The Daily Graphic was purposively sampled and a composite week sampling technique was used to select one hundred and fifty-two (152) issues of the Daily Graphic from January 2015 to December 2017. Data was collected using a coding sheet and entered into SPSS version 24. Data was analysed using STATA 13. Continuous variables like number of stories were summarised using means and standard deviations. Categorical variables were also presented as frequencies and percentages. Results: Out of the 152 issues gathered, 49 (32.2%), 52 (34.2%) and 51 (33.6%) were publications from 2015, 2016 and 2017 respectively. Of the 7,877 stories, 449 (5.7%) were health stories and 22 (0.28%) were mental health stories. 9 (5.9%) of the publications had a specific mental health condition. The proportions of issues with depression and suicide were 1.3% and 3.3% respectively. Other mental health conditions identified were substance abuse, epilepsy and autism and formed 2.6% of the issues reviewed. Also, on the tone of mental health stories, 22.3%, 50% and 27.3% had negative, neutral and positive tones respectively and a significant association was observed between the tone and year of publication (p<0.05). Conclusion: The study found that, there was low reporting on mental health stories. There should be efforts to improve mental health reporting in the media to augment dissemination of mental health information in Ghana.