Do you let me symptomatize? The potential role of cultural values in cross-national variability of mental disorders’ prevalence

Máté Kapitány-Fövény, Mara J Richman, Zsolt Demetrovics and Mihály Sulyok

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2018, vol. 64, issue 8, 756-766

Abstract: Background: Mental disorders may show inherent cross-national variability in their prevalence. A considerable number of meta-analyses attribute this heterogeneity to the methodological diversity in published epidemiological studies. Cultural values are characteristically not assessed in meta-regression models as potential covariates. Aim: Our aim was to conduct a meta-regression analysis to explore to what extent certain cultural values and immigration rates (as indicator of cultural diversity) might be associated with the cross-national heterogeneity of prevalence rates. Method: To minimize methodological differences that may exert a confounding effect, prevalence rates were obtained from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) World Mental Health Survey Initiative. Cultural indices (overall emancipative values; overall secular values) were collected from the World Value Survey, while immigration rates were registered by utilizing the data of the United Nations’ World Population Policies 2005 report. Results: Meta-regression analysis indicated that overall emancipative values (i.e. promoting self-expression, non-violent protest) showed significant connection with lifetime and last year prevalence of any mood disorders ( Z  = 4.71, p  = .001; Z  = 2.35, p  = .02) and any internalizing disorders (a merged category that combined mood and anxiety disorders; Z  = 2.82, p  = .004; Z  = 2.34, p  = .02). Overall secular values (i.e. rejecting authority and obedience) were negatively associated with last year prevalence of depression ( Z  = −2.75, p  = .06). Multistep regression analysis indicated that immigration rate moderated the connection between cultural values and mental disorders. Countries with higher immigration rates showed higher emancipative and secular values. Conclusion: Our findings might function as potential foundation for formulating hypotheses regarding the cultural context’s influence on the population’s mental health.

Keywords: Mental disorder prevalence; WMH; cultural values; depression; immigration rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:64:y:2018:i:8:p:756-766

DOI: 10.1177/0020764018811361

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