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Insight, psychosis and ethnicity: a case-note study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Sonia Johnson  and
Martin Orrell
Sonia Johnson*
Affiliation:
Maudsley Continuing Care Study, Institute of Psychiatry and Department of Psychiatry, University College London Medical School, London
Martin Orrell
Affiliation:
Maudsley Continuing Care Study, Institute of Psychiatry and Department of Psychiatry, University College London Medical School, London
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Sonia Johnson Maudsley Continuing Care StudyInstitute of PsychiatryDe Crespigny ParkLondon SE5 8AF.
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Synopsis

Recent literature on insight has paid little attention to patients' social backgrounds and cultures. Discharge summaries from 357 patients with a psychotic illness were examined to investigate factors associated with insight. A highly significant association was found between British white ethnic origin and being thought by the admitting psychiatrist to have some insight. Possible explanations include: different ways of understanding mental illness in different cultures, greater stigma leading to greater denial of illness in some cultures, greater illness severity at admission in some ethnic groups and racial bias in psychiatrists' ratings.

Type
Brief Communication
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 26 , Issue 5 , September 1996 , pp. 1081 - 1084
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

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