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Beliefs about schizophrenia and its treatment in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Viren Swami1, Adrian Furnham, Kumaraswami Kannan
1Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, London, UK. virenswami@hotmail.com
Background:
Lay beliefs about schizophrenia have been extensively studied in cross-cultural settings, but research on ethnic differences are currently lacking.
Aims:
This study examined beliefs about the manifestations, causes and cures of schizophrenia in a multi-ethnic sample from Malaysia.
Methods:
In this study, 561 Malay, Chinese and Kadazan-Dusun participants rated 72 statements about schizophrenia on a 7-point scale.
Results:
Results showed that Malaysians tended to favour social-environmental explanations for schizophrenia. There were also ethnic and sex differences in these results. Specifically, Malay participants more strongly agreed that schizophrenia has a social cause, that treatment should affect changes at a societal level, that schizophrenic behaviour is sinful and that mental hospitals do not provide effective treatments.
Conclusions:
Lay beliefs about schizophrenia may serve different functions for different ethno-cultural groups, which have an influence on help-seeking behaviour.
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