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Racial Differences in Beliefs About the Effectiveness and Necessity of Mental Health Treatment
Author(s) -
Anglin Deidre M.,
Alberti Philip M.,
Link Bruce G.,
Phelan Jo C.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
american journal of community psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.113
H-Index - 112
eISSN - 1573-2770
pISSN - 0091-0562
DOI - 10.1007/s10464-008-9189-5
Subject(s) - seriousness , mental health , vignette , health psychology , mental illness , ethnic group , clinical psychology , public health , psychiatry , psychology , depression (economics) , help seeking , medicine , social psychology , nursing , sociology , political science , anthropology , law , economics , macroeconomics
Members of racial/ethnic minority groups are less likely than Caucasians to access mental health services despite recent evidence of more favorable attitudes regarding treatment effectiveness. The present study explored this discrepancy by examining racial differences in beliefs about how the natural course and seriousness of mental illnesses relate to perceived treatment effectiveness. The analysis is based on a nationally representative sample of 583 Caucasian and 82 African American participants in a vignette experiment about people living with mental illness. While African Americans were more likely than Caucasians to believe that mental health professionals could help individuals with schizophrenia and major depression, they were also more likely to believe mental health problems would improve on their own. This belief was unrelated to beliefs about treatment effectiveness. These findings suggest that a belief in treatment effectiveness may not increase service utilization among African Americans who are more likely to believe treatment is unnecessary.