Exploring Diverse Mental Illness Attributions in a Multinational Sample: A Mixed-Methods Survey of Scholars in International Psychology

Attributions, or beliefs about the causes of mental illness, have been associated with thoughts, emotions, and actions related to mental health problems and treatment. Research has shown that people hold a wide variety of beliefs about the causes of mental illness, including components that are social, genetic, spiritual, fatalistic, or simply a result of chance. The current study surveyed 158 English-speaking scholars in psychology from 65 different countries, who reported beliefs they had observed among members of the public related to attributions of mental illness. Following the research design of Landrine and Klonoff (1994) , questionnaires included free-form qualitative questions and a list of quantitative ratings of the importance of various attributions in a specific country. The scholars’ responses supported models developed with more geographically homogeneous samples, with supernatural causes, social stress, and lifestyle among the most common attributions of illness in a variety of nations. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) of the 7 derived factors revealed significant differences in attributions among regions of the world, and particularly with respect to attributions to supernatural causes, social/stress, physical health, and substance use. Although further validation of the model is recommended, an international attribution framework may lead to valuable research examining help seeking for mental health concerns, mental illness stigma, and other variables in diverse geographical and cultural contexts.

Robust step-down tests for multivariate independent group designs

A composite step-down procedure, in which a set of step-down tests are summarized collectively with Fisher's combination statistic, was considered to test for multivariate mean equality in two-group designs. An approximate degrees of freedom (ADF) composite procedure based on trimmed/Winsorized estimators and a non-pooled estimate of error variance is proposed, and compared to a composite procedure based on trimmed/Winsorized estimators and a pooled estimate of error variance. The step-down procedures were also compared to Hotelling's T (2) and Johansen's ADF global procedure based on trimmed estimators in a simulation study. Type I error rates of the pooled step-down procedure were sensitive to covariance heterogeneity in unbalanced designs; error rates were similar to those of Hotelling's T (2) across all of the investigated conditions. Type I error rates of the ADF composite step-down procedure were insensitive to covariance heterogeneity and less sensitive to the number of dependent variables when sample size was small than error rates of Johansen's test. The ADF composite step-down procedure is recommended for testing hypotheses of mean equality in two-group designs except when the data are sampled from populations with different degrees of multivariate skewness.

The relationship of inflammatory bowel disease type and activity to psychological functioning and quality of life

BACKGROUND & AIMS

We aimed to assess the relationship of disease type and disease activity with psychological functioning and quality of life (QOL) in a population-based cohort of patients with recently diagnosed inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

METHODS

A total of 388 individuals diagnosed within 7 years were recruited from a population-based registry of IBD patients for the Manitoba IBD Cohort Study. Participants completed a clinical interview and standardized self-report measures of positive and negative psychological functioning, and QOL. Disease activity was determined by symptom self-report over the prior 6 months; Harvey-Bradshaw or Powell-Tuck disease activity indices also were used. Disease type was determined through chart verification.

RESULTS

Seventy-four percent of Crohn's disease and 66% of ulcerative colitis participants had active disease during the previous 6 months. Multivariate regression showed that those with active disease had higher levels of distress, health anxiety, and perceived stress, lower social support, well-being and mastery, and poorer disease-specific QOL, relative to those with inactive disease. Disease type was not contributory to psychological functioning or QOL. Pain anxiety (fear of pain) and pain-specific catastrophizing were not associated with disease activity, after controlling for other psychological variables. Participants with either active or inactive disease had suboptimal general QOL.

CONCLUSIONS

Ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease participants were not differentiated in their psychological profiles. Given the strong association between disease-specific QOL, psychological functioning, and disease activity, it is important to be aware of related difficulties in patients with active IBD. There is a continued impact on QOL by the disease, even when it is inactive.

Gender and racial differences in mathematical performance

The authors examined gender and racial differences in mathematics performance among 5th- and 8th-grade students in the United States. Math performance was assessed by scores on the math-concepts and math-computation sections of the California Achievement Test (CTB/McGraw-Hill, 1986) given at the end of the previous year. There were no significant gender differences, but in both grades, the White students scored significantly higher than the Black students. The racial differences were more pronounced in the scores for concepts than in the scores for computation. Responses to a parent questionnaire showed significant relationships between parents' self-reported math anxiety, parents' most advanced math course, and parents' education level in relation to the child's math performance. Differences in these relationships suggest that, although parents' beliefs and attitudes about math influence their child's math performance, the relationship is complex and may vary with race.

Sexual dimorphism in the emergence of the deciduous teeth

Exact ages of emergence of the twenty deciduous teeth have been investigated on a longitudinal sample of 195 French-Canadian children (113 boys and 82 girls). A multivariate analysis of variance yielded a significant overall sex difference (p less than 0.0001). It has been found that the emergence of the deciduous dentition in boys is more precocious than that in girls by about one month; this difference is present at the emergence of the upper central incisor and is maintained henceforth. The only notable exception to this pattern is the emergence of the first molars. Results of the present study, combined with those of previous research, suggest that sexual dimorphism in the emergence of the deciduous teeth could be mediated through ethnic factors.

STEP-DOWN ANALYSIS AND SIMULTANEOUS CONFIDENCE INTERVALS IN MANOVA

Two fundamental ways of analyzing a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) problem in more detail are the stepdown analysis (Roy, 1958; Bock, 1963), and the use of simultaneous confidence intervals (Gabriel, 1968; Morrison, 1967). Assuming a global test of significance, such as Wilk's A, has indicated non- ohance association between the independent variable and the set of dependent variables (this paper will limit discussion to the one- way design), the aforementioned methods may be used to deter- mine which of the dependent variables and/or groups are responsible for the global significance.

THE ETA COEFFICIENT IN MANOVA

Methods for the calculation of eta squared have recently been presented for examining the strength of relationship in univariate analysis of variance. This paper extends them to the multivariate used in which the effects of independent variables may be examined in relation to two or more dependent variables and presents considerations for the calculation, use, and interpretation of the coefficients. The concepts of eta squared are generalized to the rnultivaziate case through the application of the multivariate general linear hypothesis Both orthogronal and nonorthogonal solutions are considered and an example of the former is presented.