Recorded incidents of "amafufunyana" appear to have begun in the early 20th century and researchers such as Ngubane "et al" have suggested that its cultural formation may have had something to do with colonialism and migration of indigenous peoples away from their homes. There have also been widespread outbreaks of the condition, similar to events involving contagious spread of hysteria, recorded in the 1980s at a rural girl's boarding school.

The most common types of people that are identified as afflicted by the cultural group are those of the lowest economic and social level and more often during times of cultural hardship and change, such as during migrations. More women than men are also identified.

Amafufunyana is an unspecified "culture-bound" syndrome named by the traditional healers of the Xhosa people that relates to claims of demonic possession due to members of the Xhosa people exhibiting aberrant behavior and psychological concerns. After study, it was discovered that this term is directed toward people suffering from varying types of schizophrenia. A similar term, ukuthwasa, is used to refer to positive types of claimed possession, though this event also involves those suffering from schizophrenia. It has also found cultural usage among some groups of Zulu peoples.

The direct translation of the term "amafufunyana" is nerves and is a part of a much more complex cultural ideology connecting varying types of psychosis with religious, social, and recently psychiatric beliefs and activities. In a 1998 interview with Xhosa people suffering from schizophrenia by Lund et al., it was determined that through interaction with scientists and psychological services, the preferred treatment for the cultural condition had shifted from relation to traditional healers to active psychiatric assessment.

In medicine and medical anthropology, a culture-bound syndrome, culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease only within a specific society or culture. There are no objective biochemical or structural alterations of body organs or functions, and the disease is not recognized in other cultures. The term "culture-bound syndrome" was included in the fourth version of the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) which also includes a list of the most common culture-bound conditions (DSM-IV: Appendix I). Counterpart within the framework of ICD-10 () are the "culture-specific disorders" defined in Annex 2 of the "Diagnostic criteria for research".

More broadly, an epidemic that can be attributed to cultural behavior patterns or suggestion is sometimes referred to as a behavioral epidemic. As in the cases of drug or alcohol abuse or smoking, transmission can be determined by communal reinforcement as well as by person-to-person interactions. On etiological grounds, it can be difficult to distinguish the causal contribution of culture in disease from other environmental factors such as toxicity.

A culture-specific syndrome is characterized by:

1. categorization as a disease in the culture (i.e., not a voluntary behaviour or false claim);

2. widespread familiarity in the culture;

3. complete lack of familiarity or misunderstanding of the condition to people in other cultures;

4. no objectively demonstrable biochemical or tissue abnormalities (signs);

5. the condition is usually recognized and treated by the folk medicine of the culture.

Some culture-specific syndromes involve somatic symptoms (pain or disturbed function of a body part), while others are purely behavioral. Some culture-bound syndromes appear with similar features in several cultures, but with locally specific traits, such as penis panics.

A culture-specific syndrome is not the same as a geographically localized disease with specific, identifiable, causal tissue abnormalities, such as kuru or sleeping sickness, or genetic conditions limited to certain populations. It is possible that a condition originally assumed to be a culture-bound behavioral syndrome is found to have a biological cause; from a medical perspective it would then be redefined into another nosological category.