Causes of schizophrenia reported by patients' family members in China.
BACKGROUND
Better methods of assessing patients' and family members' causal models of illness are needed to improve adherence with biomedical interventions and to design services that meet the needs of consumers.


OBJECTIVE
To develop a quantitative measure suitable for assessing the relationship of causal beliefs to expressed emotion, stigma, care-seeking and adherence.


METHODS
The Causal Models Questionnaire for Schizophrenia, which includes 45 causes identified during in-depth interviews with family members, was administered to 245 family members of 135 patients with DSM-III-R schizophrenia in Suzhou and Siping, China at the time of admission to hospital.


RESULTS
Respondents, who identified a mean of 2.5 causes (range 1-10, mode 2), attributed 84% of the cause of schizophrenia to social, interpersonal and psychological problems. Hence, their beliefs do not concur with Chinese professionals' ideas about the biomedical causes of schizophrenia. Multivariate analyses identified the socio-economic factors that influence family members' causal beliefs.


CONCLUSIONS
Despite the complexity of causal models, measures can be developed that will help improve clinicians' communication with patients and understanding of help-seeking behaviours.
Phillips
M R
MR
Research Center of Clinical Epidemiology, Beijing Hui Long Guan Hospital, Beijing, People's Republic of China.
Li
Y
Y
Stroup
T S
TS
Xin
L
L
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017028:Caregivers; D002681:China; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000209:etiology*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*