Schizophrenia in Afro-Caribbean immigrants.
Hospital admission rates for schizophrenia are higher in Afro-Caribbean immigrants to Britain than in the white British-born population. However, the reported differences in incidence and prevalence could be due to confounding variables: the diagnosis of schizophrenia might not carry the same prognostic implications in the two groups; and the differences in formal admission rates might not persist when demographic and diagnostic differences are allowed for. The case-notes of 50 Afro-Caribbean immigrants and 41 British-born white patients with a hospital diagnosis of schizophrenia were examined retrospectively, the average period covered being 12 years. There were no differences in the number of readmissions, but in the Afro-Caribbean group readmissions were shorter. Involuntary admissions were twice as common in Afro-Caribbeans and this excess was not explained by differences in age, sex, or type of illness. The reported excess of schizophrenia in Afro-Caribbean immigrants to Britain is real, but the illness seems to run a milder course than in the white British-born population.
Callan
A F
AF
Department of Psychological Medicine, University College Hospital, London, England.
D000328:Adult; D044383:Black People; D017691:Caribbean Region / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010359:Patient Readmission; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000208:ethnology*; D012737:Sex Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology