Main Issues in Mental Health and Race by Dele Olajide David Ndegwa

Author:Dele Olajide, David Ndegwa [Dele Olajide, David Ndegwa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology
ISBN: 9781351771931
Google: 2caWDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-06-04T03:47:42+00:00

Summary and Conclusions

What then are the religious influences on schizophrenia among Afro-Caribbeans?

Religion is important to Affo-Caribbeans in the UK and to Afro-Americans, both in absolute terms and relative to other groups. Via a number of routes, religious factors may lower prevalence and improve prognosis. This is a bit speculative because most of the evidence relating religion to mental health among Affo-Caribbeans deals with forms of mental illness other than schizophrenia. Clearly there is space for research on the ways religious factors – social support, worship-related activities and social-cognitive factors – relate to prevalence, referral and recovery in schizophrenia. It is suggested that the direction of these effects is likely to be to lower prevalence and referral, and improve recovery. If so, these effects cannot explain any higher rates of schizophrenia referral among Affo-Caribbeans.

However there is also the suggestion that religious factors may influence symptoms, sometimes causing a risk of over-diagnosis of schizophrenia.

It is unlikely, however, that the high risk of schizophrenia among Affo-Caribbeans can be explained solely in terms of the added likelihood of ‘culture-specific’ psychosis influenced by cultural-religious factors. If this were so, it would be hard to explain the reported rise in risk of schizophrenia among second-generation immigrants to the UK. Moreover, ‘culture-specific’ psychosis is reported in African countries and elsewhere, where rates of schizophrenia are said to be as low as in indigenous European and other groups. These phenomena might be better understood with better information on religiosity in relation to schizophrenia.

The only way in which religious factors are likely to contribute to raised rates of schizophrenia is however in over-diagnosis of schizophrenia among disturbed Afro-Caribbeans presenting with a ‘religious flavour’ to their disturbance. But this is speculative and deserves closer study.

Religious methods of healing are to an increasing extent being taken into account by mental health professionals, including those working among Affo-Caribbean groups. It is likely that this trend will continue. It is to be hoped that outcome studies will appear in this field.

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