| dc.description.abstract | Cultural variations in individuals' perceptions of mental distress are an important issue for
health care. They can affect communication between health professionals and mentally
distressed individuals and might be one explanation for problematic diagnosis, poor
service uptake and negative outcome for individuals from ethnic minorities. This PhD a)
explores how cultural variations in perceptions of mental distress have been assessed in
the past b) reports the construction and development of a new instrument, the Barts
Explanatory Model Inventory (BEMI) and c) uses the instrument to explore associations
between illness perceptions and ethnic background, acculturation processes and
psychiatric 'caseness' in three different ethnic groups. It was found that significant ethnic
variations existed in perceptions about physical complaints, spiritual, physical and
psychosocial causes, expected timeline, psychological consequences and helpful
treatment. For example individuals from White British background found 'alternative or
complementary' treatments helpful (,X 2=1 2.035, p<. 01); individuals from Bangladeshi and
Caribbean background on the other hand preferred 'medical' (72 =6.597, p<. 05) or
(spiritual' interventions (,X 2=1 7.916, p<. 001). The survey also found that perceptions
contribute significantly to predicting psychiatric caseness (R 2=
.
577, p<. 0001) and are in
turn also helping to predict how long migrants have been in the UK (R 2=
.
581 p<. 0001).
The findings support the notion of assessing cultural variations in perceptions in health
care as a feasible as well as necessary endeavour. | en_US |
