The final segment of a fascinating series on the role of culture in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. Considering some of the discussions on DU about Tom Cruise's comments on psychiatry, I thought someone might find this interesting.
John Zeber recently examined one of the nation's largest databases of psychiatric cases to evaluate how doctors diagnose schizophrenia, a disorder that often portends years of powerful brain-altering drugs, social ostracism and forced hospitalizations.
Although schizophrenia has been shown to affect all ethnic groups at the same rate, the scientist found that blacks in the United States were more than four times as likely to be diagnosed with the disorder as whites. Hispanics were more than three times as likely to be diagnosed as whites.
Zeber, who studies quality, cost and access issues for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, found that differences in wealth, drug addiction and other variables could not explain the disparity in diagnoses: "The only factor that was truly important was race."
snip
The data confirm the fears of experts who have warned for years that minorities are more likely to be misdiagnosed as having serious psychiatric problems. "Bias is a very real issue," said Francis Lu, a psychiatrist at the University of California at San Francisco. "We don't talk about it -- it's upsetting. We see ourselves as unbiased and rational and scientific." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/27/AR2005062701496.html