Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-22dnz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T21:20:36.801Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

GP consultation as a factor in the low rate of mental health service use by Asians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Mona Wilson  and
Brigid MacCarthy
Mona Wilson*
Affiliation:
Willesden Centre for Psychological Treatment, Psychology Department, Royal London Hospital Trust, London
Brigid MacCarthy
Affiliation:
Willesden Centre for Psychological Treatment, Psychology Department, Royal London Hospital Trust, London
*
1Address for correspondence: Ms Mona Wilson, Willesden Centre for Psychological Treatment, Willesden Hospital, Harlesden Road, London NW10 3RY.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

Patients attending five Health Centres in areas of NW London with a high Asian population were asked to complete a questionnaire screening for non-psychotic psychiatric illness and to state why they had come to see their doctor. The GPs were also asked to rate the purpose of the consultation for those patients who scored above the cut-off point on the questionnaire. The screening questionnaire revealed equivalent rates of non-psychotic psychiatric morbidity in the White and Asian samples and no differences in the way their symptoms were presented. The differences that did emerge showed that Asian patients scoring above the cut-off for psychiatric caseness were more likely to state that they were consulting their GP about a physical problem and GPs were more likely to identify psychiatric morbidity in White than Asian patients who exceeded the cut-off threshold. The results suggest the possibility of an interaction between the ways in which patients experience and communicate psychological distress, their ethnic origin, and their GP's mode of responding.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , February 1994 , pp. 113 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bal, S. S. (1987). Psychological symptomatology and health beliefs of Asian patients. In Clinical Psychology: Research and Developments (ed. Dent, H.), pp. 101–110. Croom Helm: London.Google Scholar
Bhopal, R. S. (1986). The inter-relationship of folk, traditional and Western medicine within an Asian community in Britain. Social Science and Medicine 22, 99–105.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boardman, A. P. (1987). The General Health Questionnaire and the detection of emotional disorders by General Practitioners. British Journal of Psychiatry 151, 373–381.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brewin, C. (1980). Explaining the lower rates of psychiatric treatment among Asian immigrants to the United Kingdom: a preliminary study. Social Psychiatry 15, 17–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chakraborty, A. (1991). Culture, colonialism, and psychiatry. Lancet 337, 1204–1207.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chakraborty, A. & Sandel, B. (1984). Somatic complaint syndrome in India. Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review 21, 212–218.Google Scholar
Cochrane, R. (1977). Mental illness in immigrants to England and Wales. Social Psychiatry 12, 25–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cochrane, R. & Stopes-Roe, M. (1977). Psychological and social adjustment of Asian immigrants to Britain: a community survey. Social Psychiatry 12, 195–206.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craissati, J. (1988). Stress and coping in a Bangladeshi community in London. Unpublished dissertation for the BPS Diploma in Clinical Psychology. The British Psychological Society, St Andrews House, 48 Princess Road East, Leicester LE1 7DR.Google Scholar
Drietzel, H. P. (1981). The socialisation of nature: Western attitudes towards the body and emotions. In Indigenous Psychologies (ed. Heelas, P. and Lock, A.), pp. 205–223. Academic Press: London.Google Scholar
Goldberg, D. & Huxley, P. (1980). Mental Illness in the Community: The Pathway to Psychiatric Care. Tavistock Publications: London.Google Scholar
Goodwin, A. & Power, R. (1986). Clinical psychology services for ethnic minority groups. Clinical Psychology Forum 5, 24–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harding, T. W., De Arango, M. V., Baltaxar, J., Climent, C. E., Ibrahim, H. H. A., Ladrico-Ignacio, L., Srinivasa Murthy, R. & Wig, N. N. (1980). Mental disorders in primary health care: a study of their frequency and diagnosis in four developing countries. Psychological Medicine 10, 231–241.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harrison, G., Ineichen, B., Smith, J. & Morgan, H. G. (1984). Psychiatric hospital admissions in Bristol. II. Social and clinical aspects of compulsory admission. British Journal of Psychiatry 145, 605–611.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kleinman, A. (1977). Depression, somatization and the ‘new cross-cultural psychiatry’. Social Science and Medicine 11, 3–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Littlewood, R. (1990). From categories to contexts: a decade of the ‘new cross-cultural psychiatry’. British Journal of Psychiatry 156, 308–327.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lloyd, G. G. (1986). Review article: psychiatric syndromes with a somatic presentation. Journal of Psychosomatic Research 30, 113–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacCarthy, B. (1988). Clinical work with ethnic minorities. In New Developments in Clinical Psychology, vol. II (ed. Watts, F.), pp. 122–139. John Wiley and Sons: Chichester.Google Scholar
MacCarthy, B. & Craissati, J. (1989). Ethnic differences in response to adversity: a community sample of Bangladeshis and their indigenous neighbours. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 24, 196–201.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mari, J. & Williams, P. (1986). Misclassifications by psychiatric screening questionnaires. Journal of Chronic Diseases 39, 371–378.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marks, J. N., Goldberg, D. P. & Hillier, V. F. (1979). Determinants of the ability of General Practitioners to detect psychiatric illness. Psychological Medicine 9, 337–353.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Markus, H. R. & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: implications for cognition, emotion and motivation. Psychological Review 98, 224–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mauss, M. (1979). A category in the human mind: the notion of Person, the notion of Self. In Sociology and Psychology, Essays by Marcel Mauss (transl. Brewster, B.), pp. 57–94. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.Google Scholar
Murray, J. & Williams, P. (1986). Self-reported illness and general practice consultations in Asian-born and British-born residents of West London. Social Psychiatry 21, 139–145.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shweder, R. A. (1985). Menstrual pollution, soul loss and the comparative study of emotions. In Culture and Depression: Studies in the Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry of Affect and Disorder (ed. Kleinman, A. and Good, A.), pp. 182–215. University of California Press: Berkeley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, G. (1982). The role of cultural explanations in ‘somatization’ and ‘psychologization’. Social Science and Medicine 16, 1519–1530.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed