Some social and phenomenological characteristics of psychotic immigrants.
Various studies have shown: (i) increased rates of psychoses in immigrants to Britain, and a particularly high rate of schizophrenia in the West Indian- and West African-born; and (ii) a greater proportion of atypical psychoses in immigrants. A retrospective study of psychotic inpatients from a London psychiatric unit demonstrated increased rates of schizophrenia in patients from the Caribbean and West Africa. These patients included a high proportion of those with paranoid and religious phenomenology, those with frequent changes of diagnosis, formal admissions, and married women. The West Indian-born had been in Britain for nearly 10 years before first seeing a psychiatrist and, if they had an illness with religious symptomatology, were likely to have been in hospital for only 3 weeks. Rates of schizophrenia without paranoid phenomenology were similar in each ethnic group. It is suggested that the increase in the diagnosis of schizophrenia in the West Indian-born, and possibly in the West African-born, may be due in part to the occurrence of acute psychotic reactions which are diagnosed as schizophrenia.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000354:Africa, Western / Q000208:ethnology; D001208:Asia / Q000208:ethnology; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D005006:Ethnicity / Q000523:psychology*; D005060:Europe / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland / Q000208:ethnology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011618:Psychotic Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000453:epidemiology; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D006113:United Kingdom; D014900:West Indies / Q000208:ethnology