Why Is This Happening to Me? - a Comparison of Illness Representations Between Iranian and German People With Mental Illness Publisher Pubmed



Reichardt J¹ ; Ebrahimi A² ; Nasiri Dehsorkhi H² ; Mewes R^{1, 4} ; Weise C¹ ; Afshar H² ; Adibi P³ ; Moshref Dehkordy S² ; Yeganeh G¹ ; Reich H¹ ; Rief W¹ Show Affiliations
Source: BMC Psychology Published:2018

Abstract

Background: Due to an increase in migration and globalization, cross-cultural encounters in health care are also becoming more frequent. As psychotherapy is grounded in a cultural context and must be congruent with the patient's cultural beliefs of his or her illness in order to be effective, the consideration of cross-cultural differences in illness representations becomes increasingly important. Especially research on illness representations concerning mental disorders is scarce. Methods: The aim of the current study was to compare illness representations between Iranian (N = 87) and German (N = 90) patient samples as well as subclinical samples (Iranian N = 264, German N = 102) using a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). Illness representations were measured using the Illness Perception Questionnaire Revised (IPQ-R). Initially, a factor analysis was conducted in order to ensure comparability of the IPQ-R between the Iranian and the German sample. Results: The factor analysis already revealed differences in item compositions of the IPQ-R subscales indicating differences of the conception of illness representations between the samples. Further, the Iranian samples showed a significantly higher amount of supernatural causal beliefs and emotional representation of the illness than the German samples. Surprisingly, the Iranian patient sample showed the highest amount of illness coherence. Conclusion: The current paper contributes to a deeper understanding of cross-cultural differences in illness representations regarding mental disorders. Nevertheless, further research is needed to confirm current findings and to further elaborate on the relationships found. © 2018 The Author(s).