A study of the relationship of culture change to the frequency of mental illness in the outpatient clinic in the city of Cairo indicates that rapid industrialisation tends to produce significantly higher rates of patients who were judged to have serious symptoms of depression especially among village migrants who moved from their villages to work in the city's factories. A suggestive explanation is that the higher rates of depression are a factor of the social disorganisation associated with moving from the village to the city.*
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abou-Lughod, Janet:Migrant Adjustment to City Life, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 67, July-May, 1961-1962.
2.
Arieti, Silvano (1959) 'Manic-Depressive Psychosis' in: American Handbook of Psychiatry, I, Silvano Arieti, EditorNew York: Basic Books, Inc.
3.
Brody, E.B. (1969) Migration and Adaptation: The Nature of the Problem in Behaviour in New Environments, ed. by Eugene B. Brody, Sage Publications, Beverley Hills.
4.
Cawte, John (1972) Cruel, Poor and Brutal Nations. The assessment of Mental Health in an Australian Aboriginal Community by Short-Stay Psychiatric Field Team Methods. University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu.
5.
Dunham Warren H. and Robert Faris (1939), Mental Disorders in Urban Areas,
6.
Dunham, Warren H. (1976), Social Realities And Community Psychiatry, Human Sciences Press, Behavioral Publications Inc.
7.
Hare, E.H. (1956) Mental Illness and Social Conditions in Bristol , Journal of Mental Science, C.11: 349-357.
8.
Mead, M.Culture Patterns and Technical Change, New York : New American Library1955.
9.
Torrey, E.F. (1974) The Death of Psychiatry, Chilton Book Company, Randor, Pennsylvania.
10.
Wilson, DC and E.M. Lantz (1957), The Effect of Culture Change on Negro Race in Virginia, as indicated by a study of State Hospitals admissions, American Journal of Psychiatry, 114.
