Kofi E. Boakye

• PhD
• University of Cambridge

Editorial: Breaking the mental health stigma for people with substance use disorders

Background: Research shows that the prevalence of substance use disorders among the prison population is high globally. Although prisons are highly controlled environments, access to drugs and other substances in prison remains a major problem. Yet, previous research is focussed mainly on the Western context, with the studies generally reporting o...

We assess the extent to which the penal system in Ghana has adopted rehabilitation as a fundamental principle and a means to attain desistance from offending and examine the history of incarceration in Ghana, how the advent of colonialism supplanted the traditional rehabilitation approach of restitution and community reintegration and rehabilitatio...

Background Sexual violence research in Africa is overwhelmingly focused on victims with little attention given to perpetrators. In the case of juveniles who perpetrate sexual violence the evidence is mainly from studies in Western industrialized societies. The consequence is that interventions for juveniles who commit sexual violence in Ghana and A...

Background: Sexual violence research in Africa is overwhelmingly focused on victims with little attention given to perpetrators. In the case of juveniles who perpetrate sexual violence the evidence is mainly from studies in Western industrialized societies. The consequence is that interventions for juveniles who commit sexual violence in Ghana and...

Media reporting of suicide has attracted attention globally because it has the potential to trigger copycat suicides. The absence of a national policy on suicide prevention in Ghana has left the media landscape with uncensored publication of suicide stories. The aim of this study was to examine the views of media editors on suicide and the consider...

This paper examines traffic violations and cooperative intentions among a sample of commercial vehicle drivers in Ghana. Results showed that personal and vicarious corruption experiences independently increased frequency of self-reported violations of traffic laws. We found no evidence that perceived police fairness influenced self-reported violati...

Community leaders can play an important role in suicide prevention because they are potential gatekeepers in resource-poor settings. To investigate their attitudes towards suicide and the role they play when people are in suicidal crisis, 10 community leaders were interviewed in a rural community in Ghana. Thematic Analysis of the interviews showed...

This study explored the views of judges and lawyers of the superior courts of Ghana on the law criminalizing attempted suicide. Qualitative data were collected from 12 experienced legal practitioners of the superior courts (five judges and seven lawyers) using a semi-structured interview schedule. Thematic analysis of the data yielded three main pe...

The penal code of Ghana condemns suicide attempt. The present study sought to explore the views of the police on persons who attempt suicide and the law criminalizing the act. Qualitative in-depth interviews were used to explore the views of 18 officers of the Ghana Police Service. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis technique. Findings show...

Objective: Drug dependency has been typified as a persistent relapsing disorder. Overall, 65% of people with substance use disorders relapse within one year after treatment. Recent interventions have focussed on contextually relevant relapse prevention strategies. This study explored relapse prevention strategies utilised by patients recovering fro...

Community leaders occupy an important role in the scheme of suicide prevention because they are a potential gatekeeper group in resource poor settings. To investigate their attitudes towards suicide and the role they play when people are in suicidal crisis, ten community leaders were interviewed in a rural community in Ghana. Thematic Analysis of t...

Community leaders occupy an important role in the scheme of suicide prevention because they are a potential gatekeeper group in resource poor settings. To investigate their attitudes towards suicide and the role they play when people are in suicidal crisis, ten community leaders were interviewed in a rural community in Ghana. Thematic Analysis of t...

Research on juvenile delinquency has focused almost exclusively on western societies with the consequence that very little is known about delinquency and its associated factors outside this context. The aim of this study is to investigate correlates and predictors of juvenile delinquency in Ghana, a developing country. Analysis of data from a sampl...

The phenomenon of child sexual abuse has been widely acknowledged across many societies, including Ghana. Efforts to address this problem in Ghana have yielded limited success because this type of child abuse is severely underreported. This study explores the relevance of three cultural factors, namely, patriarchal nuances, (child) rape myth accept...

This study explores the usefulness of the feminist theory in explaining attitudes toward rape and victims of rape in Ghana. The feminist theory of rape posits, inter alia, that patriarchy and gender inequality are major factors in the aetiology of rape and attitudes toward rape and that underlying patriarchy and gender inequality are gender stereot...