A Comparison of Russian and British Attitudes towards Mental Health Problems in the Community

Natalia Shulman and Bryan Adams
Additional contact information
Natalia Shulman: 21 New Riverhead, 173 Rosebery Avenue, London EC1R 4UL, UK.nshulman@blueyonder.co.uk
Bryan Adams: City University, Northampton Square, London, EC1V 0HB, UK.b.d.adams@city.ac.uk

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2002, vol. 48, issue 4, 266-278

Abstract: Aims & Result: This study examines the differences in attitudes towards mental health problems of Russian and British communities. A specially developed questionnaire containing four vignettes conforming to specific DSM-IV diagnoses of common mental disorders (obsessive compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, depression and dementia) was given to 134 subjects. Additional questions aimed to identify different attitudes towards the mentally ill, public awareness of the possible causes of these disorders and the availability of potential help. The comparisons were made in terms of national differences and demographic characteristics such as sex, age, education, marital status, children and familiarity with mental illness. Conclusions: The study revealed that the British sample was significantly more tolerant than the Russian. The Russian participants were far less likely to identify dementia as a mental disorder. However, the British respondents chose medically related help significantly more than the Russians. Significant associations were observed between factors such as education and familiarity with mental illness and tolerance within the British group. Various arguments are presented for the observed differences in terms of historic, political and cultural perspectives.

Date: 2002
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002076402128783307 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:48:y:2002:i:4:p:266-278

DOI: 10.1177/002076402128783307

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Social Psychiatry
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().