The purpose of this study was to obtain radiologists' perception of causes of increasing and unnecessary use of radiological investigations.
Overall, informant perception of causes of death was limited, but depended on informant characteristics and causes of death, and to some extent involved non-biomedical constructs.
Informant-given responses to VA questions can be influenced by the informant's own perception of causes of death which could ultimately impact on the InterVA assessment of cause of death (14).
Nonetheless, no studies have yet sought standardised tools such as the verbal autopsy (VA) to explore people's perception of causes of death in African settings, which is the intention of this research.
These included the impact of sexual changes on self and identity [ 78], communication with health professionals [ 74], and renegotiation of sexuality [ 55], reported elsewhere, as well as perception of causes of sexual changes, emotional consequences of sexual changes, and impact of sexual changes on relationships, the focus of the present paper.
The limited perception of causes of mortality revealed here, with only a fairly small proportion of respondents providing a medically plausible cause of death, is not surprising and may also be similar in other national or regional African settings (31, 32).
Regarding the perception of causes of mental illness, items related to psychosocial perspectives including "life stress" and "interpersonal conflict" were rated highly by the respondents, whereas traditional beliefs including "punishment for misdeeds conducted by ancestors" and "demon possession" had the lowest ratings.
There are a number of factors that influence care-seeking behavior, including perceptions of cause of illness, distance, cost, and quality of available care.
Data was open coded into different categories such as early signs, getting a diagnosis, everyday life, going out and perceptions of cause.
Not least, a VA respondent's perceptions of cause of death may sway responses to specific questions in a VA interview, and thereby affect conclusions on cause of death.
