9. Characterizing Differences in Psychopathology among Ethnic Groups: A Preliminary Report on Hawaii-Japanese and Mainland-American Schizophrenics

Abstract

The research which we will report has to do with the comparative manifestations of psychopathology in several ethnic groups. These groups are in the State of Hawaii; they are all American, but they represent very diverse cultural backgrounds.If one is interested in the ways in which psychopathology is manifested in different cultural groups, Hawaii provides a very convenient laboratory. The Islands have representatives of such disparate cultural groups as the Western, the Oriental, the Malay, and the Polynesian. Further, in this particular setting they all speak a common language. Finally, where severe functional mental disorders are the focus of interest, we note that there is only one State hospital in the Islands and only one general hospital to which most of the severely disturbed are referred. Although we identify these aspects of the situation in Hawaii as advantages for cross-cultural research, we are also aware that the relatively uniform environmental conditions contribute to a somewhat rapid assimilation of these groups and, thus, the blurring of lines among them.Given this as background, we wish to state the primary aims to be pursued in this research. Its

Functional Assessment in Rehabilitation

“…The KAS has been found to discriminate among various groups of individuals including patients and community residents (Hogarty and Katz 1971), hospitalized and day-treatment patients (Hogarty et al 1968), different types of depressed patients (Paykel 1972), and drivers involved in fatal single-car accidents compared to the general population (Schmidt et al 1972). The KAS has been used in cross-cultural research (Katz, Gudeman, and Sanborn 1969; Katz 1981), and in epidemiological studies of the incidence of psychiatric disorder in the general population (Hogarty, Katz, and Lowery 1967).…”

Characterizing Differences in Psychopathology Among Ethnic Groups in Hawaii

“…When the two groups are compared in the community prior to entering the hospital, discriminant function and univariate analyses of the scale factors indicate surprisingly little, if any, difference in their social behavior just prior to entering the hospital. The Japanese and Caucasians look very much alike on all symptom and social behavior factors and both look significantly more negative and agitated than the large Mainland schizophrenic sample used in the earlier study (4).…”

“…It has taken longer than expected to collect the sample. It was not yet complete at the time of this report 4. This was the case for all of the groups except the Caucasian females, of whom 27 percent were diagnosed as severely neurotic.…”

“…3 The very large majority of admissions is for functional psychosis; a small percentage (under 10 percent) are diagnosed as neurotic. 4 Since the hospitalized neurotics meet the criteria of "admission for severe functional disorder" and the line between the diagnosis of severe neurosis and that of borderline psychosis at the hospital is somewhat ambiguous, we have included neurotics in this first analysis of group differences.…”

Threats to cultural validity in clinical diagnosis and assessment: Illustrated with the case of Asian Americans.

“…in another study of how culture may influence the manifestation of symptoms among asian americans, Katz, sanborn, and Gudeman (1969) provided an example of intergroup differences. they studied the descriptions of Japanese and White acute schizophrenia patients before hospital admission and during their stay in the hospital.…”