Objective: To investigate traditional and alternative health seeking behavior for mental illnesses, among patients before visiting psychiatry department of Ch Rahmat Memorial Trust and Jinnah Hospital Lahore. Methods, Patients and setting: This cross-sectional multi-method study was conducted from May2017 to Sep. 2017 at two tertiary care and teaching hospitals in Lahore, and comprised patients with sample size 80 presenting with different mental illnesses at psychiatry OPD. Patients were interviewed through a Questionnaire ‘The Short Explanatory Model Interview (SEMI) to answer the research questions. Questionnaire was consisted of both Qualitative, Quantitative, closed and open ended questions. Patients were both male and female genders. Starting age was 16-18 yrs. and then onwards. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS 20. Results: Mean age of the patients was 27.91 yrs with SD + 10 yrs While 47were male and 33 were females and 95% were muslims Psychiatrist was the first choice in 45% of the patients. While rest 55% followed the non-psychiatric physicians, traditional and religious faith healers. Important reasons to seek help from different non-psychiatric sources included easy accessibility, beliefs in the system and particular healers and good reputation. Mean duration of treatment from traditional healers variedfrom2-3 months while from psychiatric physician was16.6 months. The mean expenditure per visit to get a service from psychiatrist was higher as compared to alternative traditional healers. Conclusion; About half of the patients with mental health problems seek help from psychiatrist. While other equal half go to the alternative traditional system practitioners as faith and spiritual healers. Patients and relatives justify their visits to these traditional healers by multiple reasons. So it is important to sensitize the general and non-psychiatric physicians with early identification and referral of these cases to Psychiatrists
