title: Illness perceptions and personality traits of patients with mental disorders: the impact of ethnicity.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To identify differences and similarities between immigrants of Turkish origin and native German patients in therapeutically relevant dimensions such as subjective illness perceptions and personality traits.
  
  
  METHODS
  Turkish and native German mentally disordered in-patients were interviewed in three psychiatric clinics in Hessen, Germany. The Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-Revised) and the Neuroticism-Extraversion-Openness Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) were used. Differences of scales and similarities by k-means cluster analyses were estimated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 362 total patients, 227 (123 immigrants and 104 native Germans) were included. Neither demographic nor clinical differences were detected. Socioeconomic gradients and differences on IPQ-R scales were identified. For each ethnicity, the cluster analysis identified four different patient types based on NEO-FFI and IPQ-R scales. The patient types of each ethnicity appeared to be very similar in their structure, but they differed solely in the magnitude of the cluster means on included subscales according to ethnicity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  When subjective illness perceptions and personality traits are considered together, basic patient types emerge independent of the ethnicity. Thus, the ethnical impact on patient types diminishes and a convergence was detected.
authors.affiliation: Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Vitos Clinic Kurhessen, Bad Emstal, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Franz
authors.forename: H J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Salize
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lujic
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Koch
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gallhofer
authors.forename: C O
authors.initials: CO
authors.lastname: Jacke
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health / Q000208:ethnology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D054242:Emigrants and Immigrants; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000523:psychology; D008875:Middle Aged; D010465:Perception; D010551:Personality; D010555:Personality Inventory; D012649:Self Concept; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014421:Turkey / Q000208:ethnology
keywords: behaviour; psychoeducation; public mental health; transcultural psychiatry; treatment