Main barriers to accessing mental health support for Muslims

In this step, Dr Ahmed Hankir responds to a question we put to him about what he considers to be the main barriers to accessing mental health support for Muslims.

Dr Hankir is an NHS Consultant Psychiatrist and a lived experience expert of mental health problems. The barriers he puts forward are low levels of mental health literacy among Muslims; mental health stigma; social and economic circumstances; identity crisis; racism and Islamophobia. Dr Hankir carefully explains how each of these barriers impact on Muslim mental health.

In this video Dr Hankir makes direct links between mental health and the socio-economic and socio-cultural contexts of British Muslim communities that were outlined earlier this week in Activity 4: Muslims in Britain.

In the next step, we consider the importance of recognising diversity and contextual factors when designing health interventions and promotion for Muslim communities.

Signposting

You can learn more about Dr Hankir’s lived experience of mental health on his website.

Dr Hankir mentions the work of Dr Ghazala Mir, Associate Professor at Leeds University during this video. If you would like to find out more about her pioneering work on behavioural activation therapy, please visit her webpage where open-access resources are available.

G Mir, S Meer, D Cottrell, J Kanter, D McMillan, A House, Culturally adapted therapy for the treatment of depression in Muslims: European Journal of Public Health, Volume 26, Issue suppl_1, November 2016.

Over to you

If you could ask Dr Hankir a question about the barriers Muslims face to accessing mental health support, what would it be? Take a look at the questions other learners ask and see if you can offer an answer or add to the question.