A method for the study of lay conceptions of psychopathology: a free-response approach.
A free-response approach for identifying a lay group's conception of psycopathology is described in this paper and is illustrated with a college student population. An initial sample of individuals from the population is asked to give "reasons why someone might need to be examined by a professional person in the field of mental health." A second sample of individuals sort the problem statements on the basis of their judgements of the similarity among the statements. A measure of psychological distance for each pair of statements, based on the proportion of times the two statements are sorted together, is used as input for clustering and multidimensional scaling. A third sample contributes to the interpretation of the resulting structures by rating each problem on several psychological properties. The most relevant properties found for college students are: (a) degree of abnormality; (b) referral source--self versus others. Also disc1ssed are possible applications of the method to other lay groups in the interest of providing improved community mental health services to such groups.
D001294:Attitude to Health; D003156:Community Mental Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders; D009497:Neurotic Disorders / Q000628:therapy; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000628:therapy; D011639:Public Opinion; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012735:Sexual Dysfunction, Physiological / Q000628:therapy; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012919:Social Behavior; D012920:Social Behavior Disorders / Q000628:therapy