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Paper short abstract:

This paper interrogates how beliefs and conceptualizations about cancer causation influence health care choices among Akan cancer patients in Ghana. The findings of this research elucidate on the relationship between culture and health care choices of cancer patients in Ghana.

Paper long abstract:

In sub-Saharan Africa and in Ghana, in particular, the considerable increase in cancer incidence has become an issue of great concern. However, cancer research has been scanty, with most of these researches being quantitative and biomedical in nature, and focusing on treatments. Using the theory of disease etiology, this study interrogates how cancer patients conceptualize their illness causation and how that influences their health-seeking behaviour. It builds on the assumption that disease causality, as embedded in a people's culture, is crucial to understanding the health care patterns and attitude of the sick towards treatment.

A focused ethnographic approach was used to collect in-depth information for this study. Purposive sampling technique was used to recruit 30 patients from the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi. Semi-structured interviews were conducted through face to face interactions with patients to explore their beliefs on illness causation and how these influence their choice of health care.

The study revealed that cancer patients ascribed both physical and spiritual causality to their illness. As such, they combined orthodox treatment with spiritual healing, in essence, "giving to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's". Regarding the order of therapeutic search, patients reported to herbal and spiritual centers before coming to the hospital, a phenomenon which contributes to the late reporting and diagnosis as well as bad prognosis of cancers in Ghana.