Table 8 Sociocultural domain

1: Cultural beliefs on cancer causes

o “Sometimes they say that it is dirty blood, that cyst is caused by blood that is dirty- means that your blood is now dirty, it has created an internal cyst and then you rot inside”- FGD 1, 3

o “….. or it can come out as cancer at the hospital, but they might not know how to treat it” … “Meaning it can come from sejesong” (sejesong means food poisoning)- FGD 2

o You were bewitched, got cursed, muthi was used, so, meaning that it is spiritual…they think that it is spiritual because of, you’ve been bewitched.”- FGD 3,4

2: Church as source of healing and resistance to Western medicine

o “Isn’t it as long as you have faith that “when I pray, I will heal” …you will pray and heal”, “But some churches don’t want that isn’t it…when you go to them, they don’t want these doctors’ things and what, they only want to pray for you”- FGD 3

o “When you believe that you will be healed, when you believe that “this sick should leave”, it will leave” FGD 2

o “And when I get inside the church, I meet the pastor, the pastor will pour water for me and put hands on me”- (FGD 2)

3: Role of traditional healers for good and for harm

o Yes, some doctors may never see a thing called sejeso (poisoning) you know, so they will tell you to…”, “They are important because, even these people, like doctors, when they are stranded, they tell you to go to a traditional healer.” FGD 4

o “And the painful thing, they treat something they don’t know…isn’t it cancer has stages, has this and that…maybe you’re on the last stage, they give you strong things that will make you leave sooner”- FGD 2. “I would say that traditional healers, they heal something that they don’t know, that they only imagine how it is.”- FGD 3

o “Sometimes, challenge number 1, they tend to overdose, when they say they give you mbiza, you find that they give you this much, you drink a lot, it doesn’t have grams, doesn’t have what…you just drink, 1 L, you end up overdosing, you burden your body with the overdose of the mbiza that you were given”- FGD 3

o “isn’t it sometimes you find that you’re admitted at the hospital, and then, you find that they bring you stuff from home, the hospital says “no, these things are not allowed in.”-FGD 4, 6