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Reichardt J, Ebrahimi A, Nasiri Dehsorkhi H, Mewes R, Weise C, Afshar H, Adibi P, Moshref Dehkordy S, Yeganeh G, Reich H, Rief W. Why is this happening to me? - a comparison of illness representations between Iranian and German people with mental illness. BMC Psychol 2018; 6:33. [PMID: 30029696 PMCID: PMC6053818 DOI: 10.1186/s40359-018-0250-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/15/2017] [Accepted: 07/05/2018] [Indexed: 11/10/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Due to an increase in migration and globalization, cross-cultural encounters in health care are also becoming more frequent. As psychotherapy is grounded in a cultural context and must be congruent with the patient's cultural beliefs of his or her illness in order to be effective, the consideration of cross-cultural differences in illness representations becomes increasingly important. Especially research on illness representations concerning mental disorders is scarce. METHODS The aim of the current study was to compare illness representations between Iranian (N = 87) and German (N = 90) patient samples as well as subclinical samples (Iranian N = 264, German N = 102) using a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA). Illness representations were measured using the Illness Perception Questionnaire Revised (IPQ-R). Initially, a factor analysis was conducted in order to ensure comparability of the IPQ-R between the Iranian and the German sample. RESULTS The factor analysis already revealed differences in item compositions of the IPQ-R subscales indicating differences of the conception of illness representations between the samples. Further, the Iranian samples showed a significantly higher amount of supernatural causal beliefs and emotional representation of the illness than the German samples. Surprisingly, the Iranian patient sample showed the highest amount of illness coherence. CONCLUSION The current paper contributes to a deeper understanding of cross-cultural differences in illness representations regarding mental disorders. Nevertheless, further research is needed to confirm current findings and to further elaborate on the relationships found.
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Affiliation(s)
- Judith Reichardt
- Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, Philipps University Marburg, Gutenbergstraße 18, 35032, Marburg, Germany.
| | - Amrollah Ebrahimi
- Psychosomatic Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
| | | | - Ricarda Mewes
- Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, Philipps University Marburg, Gutenbergstraße 18, 35032, Marburg, Germany.,Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Cornelia Weise
- Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, Philipps University Marburg, Gutenbergstraße 18, 35032, Marburg, Germany
| | - Hamid Afshar
- Psychosomatic Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
| | - Peyman Adibi
- Gastroenterology research center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
| | - Said Moshref Dehkordy
- Psychosomatic Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
| | - Gholamreza Yeganeh
- Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, Philipps University Marburg, Gutenbergstraße 18, 35032, Marburg, Germany
| | - Hanna Reich
- Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, Philipps University Marburg, Gutenbergstraße 18, 35032, Marburg, Germany
| | - Winfried Rief
- Division of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Department of Psychology, Philipps University Marburg, Gutenbergstraße 18, 35032, Marburg, Germany.
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