Illness causal beliefs in Turkish immigrants

Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2004

These studies examine children's understanding of the causes of illness cross-culturally. In Study 1, European- and Vietnamese-American 4- to 5-year-olds, 6- to 7-year-olds, and adults were asked to make causal attributions for a series of illness related stories. In Study 2, European- and Vietnamese-American 6- to 7-year-olds and adults were asked about the causes and remedies of illness. The results show that biological causality was the dominant form of reasoning about illness across the different ages and cultural groups, although there was some acceptance of magical causality among the Vietnamese-Americans (children and adults) and the European-American children. These results are discussed in terms of the coherence of illness beliefs.

Acta Psychiatrica …, 2007

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Objectives: Research illustrates that people hold beliefs about the causes and solutions to illness. This study aimed to assess the consistency in these beliefs in terms of their variation according to type of problem and whether they are consistent with each other. Further, the study aimed to assess whether they are open to change and whether changing beliefs about cause resulted in a subsequent shift in beliefs about solutions. Design: Experimental factorial 3 (problem) 6 2 (manipulated cause) design using vignettes. Methods: Two hundred seventy-nine participants rated their beliefs about the cause and solution of one of three problems (depression, obesity and sleep problems) following a vignette which described the causes as either psychological or biomedical. Results: Beliefs about causes and solutions varied according to type of problem indicating that beliefs are illness specific. The results also showed that people hold beliefs about causes and solutions which are consistent with each other as an endorsement of a psychological cause was consistently reflected in a belief that a psychological solution was most appropriate and effective. A similar pattern was seen for beliefs about biomedical causes and solutions. Finally, the results showed that beliefs were open to manipulation and that a shift in beliefs about causes resulted in a parallel shift in beliefs about solutions. Conclusions: People hold beliefs about causes and solution which vary according to type of problem. However, they are always consistent with each other and a shift in one set of beliefs results in a significant shift in the other set.

… and Psychotherapy: Theory, …, 1999

An in-depth qualitative interview study is reported, with respondents (N =52; all female) from the following urban-dwelling religious groups: White Christian, Pakistani Muslim, Indian Hindu, Orthodox Jewish and Afro-Caribbean Christian. Qualitative thematic analysis of open-ended interview responses revealed that the degree to which religious coping strategies were perceived to be effective in the face of depressive and schizophrenic symptoms, varied across the groups, with prayer being perceived as particularly effective among Afro-Caribbean Christian and Pakistani Muslim groups. Across all non-white groups, and also for the Jewish group, there was fear of being misunderstood by outgroup health professionals, and among Afro-Caribbean Christian and Pakistani Muslim participants, evidence of a community stigma associated with mental illness, leading to a preference for private coping strategies. The results lend further support to recent calls for ethnic-speci c mental health service provision and highlight the utility of qualitative methodology for exploring the link between religion and lay beliefs about mental illness. It has been suggested that more needs to be known about the mental beliefs of members of different cultural and social groups in order to achieve more effective liaison and help . In particular, little is known about the nature and effects of religiously-based beliefs about the causes and cures of mental illness, and these need to be understood and taken into account in formulating appropriate care. Religious-cultural communities also tend to foster stereotypical beliefs about health professionals such as general practitioners (GPs) and social workers , and a further aim is to examine how such beliefs impact on uptake and non-uptake of services. This paper reports an interview study focusing on beliefs about mental health, its causes and cures, coping and help-seeking, and stereotypes of health professionals, in ve different cultural-religious groups in Britain. Some relevant social cognitions have been studied in the general British population 505

Culture Medicine and Psychiatry, 1987

This paper presents a theoretical framework for understanding the impact of culture on the processes of symptom recognition, labeling, and help-seeking and consequently on large-scale epidemiological studies involving different ethnic groups. We begin with the assumption that the subjective experience of illness is culture-bound and that the cognitive and linguistic categories of illness characteristic of any culture constrain the interpretative and behavioral options available to individuals in response to symptoms. We hypothesize the existence of learned cognitive structures, through which bodily experiences are filtered, that influence the interpretation of deviations from culturally-defined physical and mental health norms. Certain contradictory findings concerning the selfreported health of Mexican Americans are discussed in order to illustrate the impact of culture on perceived health status.

Journal of Advanced Nursing, 2006

Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 2012

One of the core concerns of medical anthropology is to explore how people in different cultures and social groups explain the causes of ill health, the type of treatment they believe in, and to whom they turn if they do become ill. This article focuses on the understanding of illness causation by the Newars in Kirtipur and their concern about biological and socio-cultural aspects of healthy behavior, and particularly with the ways in which they have been coping in everyday life. The basic method of data collection for this study was formal and informal discussions with the elderly Newar males and females, followed by discussions with youths to explore the variations in their perceptions. The findings show that the understanding of illness etiology is multi-causal. The individual, natural, social, and supernatural causes are not mutually exclusive but are usually linked together in a particular case. In any specific case of illness, moreover, people’s explanatory model varies in how ...

1999

An in-depth qualitative interview study is reported, with respondents (N =52; all female) from the following urban-dwelling religious groups: White Christian, Pakistani Muslim, Indian Hindu, Orthodox Jewish and Afro-Caribbean Christian. Qualitative thematic analysis of open-ended interview responses revealed that the degree to which religious coping strategies were perceived to be effective in the face of depressive and schizophrenic symptoms, varied across the groups, with prayer being perceived as particularly effective among Afro-Caribbean Christian and Pakistani Muslim groups. Across all non-white groups, and also for the Jewish group, there was fear of being misunderstood by outgroup health professionals, and among Afro-Caribbean Christian and Pakistani Muslim participants, evidence of a community stigma associated with mental illness, leading to a preference for private coping strategies. The results lend further support to recent calls for ethnic-speci c mental health service provision and highlight the utility of qualitative methodology for exploring the link between religion and lay beliefs about mental illness. It has been suggested that more needs to be known about the mental beliefs of members of different cultural and social groups in order to achieve more effective liaison and help (Ball, 1995; Mitchell, 1995; Zane, Hatanka, Park & Akatsu, 1994). In particular, little is known about the nature and effects of religiously-based beliefs about the causes and cures of mental illness, and these need to be understood and taken into account in formulating appropriate care. Religious-cultural communities also tend to foster stereotypical beliefs about health professionals such as general practitioners (GPs) and social workers (Nickerson, Helms & Terrell, 1994), and a further aim is to examine how such beliefs impact on uptake and non-uptake of services. This paper reports an interview study focusing on beliefs about mental health, its causes and cures, coping and help-seeking, and stereotypes of health professionals, in ve different cultural-religious groups in Britain. Some relevant social cognitions have been studied in the general British population 505

The purpose of this study was to determine if there would be significant main and interaction influence of paranormal beliefs and culture on incidence of psychopathology among a non-psychotic population. A survey research was carried out using a purposive non-probability sampling method drawing the sample from two ethnic groups; Yoruba and Igbo. They consisted of two hundred and four respondents with 78 adolescent and 126 adults with the age range of 14 and 65 years, 103 male and 101 female, 132 Christians, 66 Muslims and 6 traditional religious adherents, 107 Yoruba and 98 Igbo; all of which attained the minimum educational level of Junior Secondary School Certificate, who responded to Revised Paranormal Belief Scale and the General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg, 1978).Using Factorial Design, 2 X 2 ANOVA and Independent t-test to analyse the data, results indicated that paranormal beliefs significantly influenced anxiety and depression dimensions of psychopathology. It was also revealed that there was a significant main influence of culture on anxiety and depression. Also observed was a significant difference between the two ethnic groups, Yoruba and Igbo, on paranormal belief and incidence of psychopathology. It was therefore concluded that paranormal beliefs and culture have significant main influence on incidence of psychopathological symptoms.

Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 2013

Purpose: This study describes causal beliefs about depression among Dominican, Colombian, and Ecuadorian immigrants. The authors describe participants' narratives about how particular supernatural or religious beliefs may contribute to or alleviate depression. Method: Latino primary care patients (n = 177) were interviewed with the Beliefs About Causes of Depression Scale, a list of 35 items rated from not at all important to extremely important. Participants had the option of expanding on responses using an informal conversational approach. Underlying themes of these explanatory comments were derived from narrative and content analysis. Results: Major themes that emerged were Psychosocial and Religious and Supernatural causal beliefs. A third theme emerged that represented the integration of these categories in the context of the immigrant experience. Discussion and Conclusions: This article adds to the understanding of cross-cultural beliefs about depression. Psychosocial stressors related to the immigrant experience and adverse life events were highly endorsed, but the meaning of these stressors was construed in terms of religious and cultural values. To provide culturally appropriate services, nurses should be aware of and discuss the patient's belief systems, illness interpretations, and expectations of treatment.

Frontiers in Psychology, 2014

Cognitive psychological research focuses on causal learning and reasoning while cognitive anthropological and social science research tend to focus on systems of beliefs. Our aim was to explore how these two types of research can inform each other. Cognitive psychological theories (causal model theory and causal Bayes nets) were used to derive predictions for systems of causal beliefs. These predictions were then applied to lay theories of depression as a specific test case. A systematic literature review on causal beliefs about depression was conducted, including original, quantitative research. Thirty-six studies investigating 13 non-Western and 32 Western cultural groups were analyzed by classifying assumed causes and preferred forms of treatment into common categories. Relations between beliefs and treatment preferences were assessed. Substantial agreement between cultural groups was found with respect to the impact of observable causes. Stress was generally rated as most important. Less agreement resulted for hidden, especially supernatural causes. Causal beliefs were clearly related to treatment preferences in Western groups, while evidence was mostly lacking for non-Western groups. Overall predictions were supported, but there were considerable methodological limitations. Pointers to future research, which may combine studies on causal beliefs with experimental paradigms on causal reasoning, are given. FIGURE 1 | Graphical causal models representing causal relations. On the left hand side an abstract, generic model is depicted, on the right hand side an example for a simplified causal model of depression is presented. Nodes represent variables (events, states) and arrows represent directed causal relations.

Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences, 2017

Aims. To identify the common causal beliefs of mental illness in a multi-ethnic Southeast Asian community and describe the sociodemographic associations to said beliefs. The factor structure to the causal beliefs scale is explored. The causal beliefs relating to five different mental illnesses (alcohol abuse, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), dementia and schizophrenia) and desire for social distance are also investigated. Methods. Data from 3006 participants from a nationwide vignette-based study on mental health literacy were analysed using factor analysis and multiple logistic regression to address the aims. Participants answered questions related to sociodemographic information, causal beliefs of mental illness and their desire for social distance towards those with mental illness. Results. Physical causes, psychosocial causes and personality causes were endorsed by the sample. Sociodemographic differences including ethnic, gender and age differences in causal beliefs were found in the sample. Differences in causal beliefs were shown across different mental illness vignettes though psychosocial causes was the most highly attributed cause across vignettes (endorsed by 97.9% of respondents), followed by personality causes (83.5%) and last, physical causes (37%). Physical causes were more likely to be endorsed for OCD, depression and schizophrenia. Psychosocial causes were less often endorsed for OCD. Personality causes were less endorsed for dementia but more associated with depression. Conclusions. The factor structure of the causal beliefs scale is not entirely the same as that found in previous research. Further research on the causal beliefs endorsed by Southeast Asian communities should be conducted to investigate other potential causes such as biogenetic factors and spiritual/supernatural causes. Mental health awareness campaigns should address causes of mental illness as a topic. Lay beliefs in the different causes must be acknowledged and it would be beneficial for the public to be informed of the causes of some of the most common mental illnesses in order to encourage help-seeking and treatment compliance.

Cognitive Psychology, 2006

The current studies explore causal models of heart attack and depression generated from American healers whom use distinct explanatory frameworks. Causal chains leading to two illnesses, heart attack and depression, were elicited from participant groups: registered nurses (RNs), energy healers, RN energy healers, and undergraduates. The domain-speciWcity hypothesis predicted that psychosocial and physical causes would not interact in illness models. Across illnesses, RNs and undergraduates rarely cited interactions between mental and physical causes, consistent with the domain speci-Wcity hypothesis. In contrast, energy healers frequently mentioned interactions. Study 2 showed that these diVerences were not due to salience. These results suggest that domain-speciWcity theory is supported for groups with extensive exposure to western medicine but does not explain energy models of illness. Implications for other cultural models of illness are discussed.

World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA), 2006

Studies indicate that stigmatizing attitudes to mental illness are rampant in the community worldwide. It is unclear whether views about the causation of mental disorders identify persons with more negative attitudes. Using data collected as part of a community study of knowledge of and attitudes to mental illness in Nigeria, we examined the relationships between views about causation and attitudes. Persons holding exclusively biopsychosocial views of causation were not different from those holding exclusively religious-magical views in regard to socio-demographic attributes, and the two groups were not very dissimilar when general knowledge of the nature of mental illness was compared. However, religious-magical views of causation were more associated with negative and stigmatizing attitudes to the mentally ill. Findings demonstrate the challenge of developing and delivering an educational program to change public attitudes to mental illness.

. I. M. Salloum & J. E. Mezzich (Eds.), Psychiatric Diagnosis: Patterns and Prospects. New York: John Wiley & Sons., 2009