Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

A comparison of the factor structure of patients' self-perceived treatment needs between psychiatric patients of low and high social class showed strong similarity on several factors. Reports of need for help with marital and economic-vocational difficulties and psychotic symptoms were identical. The phenomenological experience of anxiety and depression was indistinguishable, but patients of high social class expected relief in improved interpersonal relations while patients of lower class sought relief in escape. Guilt appeared to be without specific referent in the lower-class group but associated with behavioral acts among higher class Ss. Groups differed in their reported feelings of inadequacy. Patients of higher class failed to attribute psychological difficulties to physical causes. The influence of patients' self-definition of disturbance upon choice of treatment is discussed.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Aronson

Overall

Treatment expectations of patients in two social classes. Social Work, 1966, 11, 35–42.

Crandell

D. L.

Dohrenwend

B. P.

Some relation among psychiatric symptoms, organic illness and social class. American Journal of Psychiatry, 1967, 123, 1527–1538.

Dohrenwend

B. P.

Chin-Shong

Social status and attitudes toward psychological disorder: The problem of tolerance of deviance. American Sociological Review, 1967, 32, 417–433.

Dohrenwend

B. S.

Dohrenwend

B. P.

Field studies of social factors in relation to three types of psychological disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1967, 72, 369–378.

Fitzgibbons

D. J.

Cutler

Cohen

Patients' self-perceived treatment needs and their relation to background variables. Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology, 1971, 36, in press.

Goffman

Asylums. New York: Doubleday, 1961.

Grey

Social class and the psychiatric patient: A study in composite character. Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 1966, 2, 87–121.

Hollingshead

A. B.

Redlich

F. C.

Social class and mental illness: A community study. New York: Wiley, 1958.

Levinson

D. J.

Gallagher

E. B.

Patienthood in the mental hospital. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964.

10.

National Institute of Mental Health, Program Analysis and Evaluation Branch, Office of Program Planning and Evaluation.

The mental health of urban America: The urban program of the National Institute of Mental Health. Bethesda, Md.: Public Health Service, April, 1969. (Publ. No. 1906)

Social Class Differences in Patients' Self-Perceived Treatment Needs

Abstract

Get full access to this article

References