Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T21:08:56.326Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some social and phenomenological characteristics of psychotic immigrants1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Roland Littlewood  and
Maurice Lipsedge
Roland Littlewood*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, Guy's Hospital, London, Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford
Maurice Lipsedge
Affiliation:
Department of Psychological Medicine, Guy's Hospital, London, Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Oxford
*
2Address for correspondence: Dr R. Littlewood, Wolfson College, Oxford OX2 6UD.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Synopsis

Various studies have shown: (i) increased rates of psychoses in immigrants to Britain, and a particularly high rate of schizophrenia in the West Indian- and West African-born; and (ii) a greater proportion of atypical psychoses in immigrants. A retrospective study of psychotic inpatients from a London psychiatric unit demonstrated increased rates of schizophrenia in patients from the Caribbean and West Africa. These patients included a high proportion of those with paranoid and religious phenomenology, those with frequent changes of diagnosis, formal admissions, and married women. The West Indian-born had been in Britain for nearly 10 years before first seeing a psychiatrist and, if they had an illness with religious symptomatology, were likely to have been in hospital for only 3 weeks. Rates of schizophrenia without paranoid phenomenology were similar in each ethnic group. It is suggested that the increase in the diagnosis of schizophrenia in the West Indian- born, and possibly in the West African-born, may be due in part to the occurrence of acute psychotic reactions which are diagnosed as schizophrenia.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , May 1981 , pp. 289 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

An interim report of this study was presented at the International Congress of Transcultural Psychiatry, Bradford, England, 1976.

References

Argyle, M. & Beit-Hallahmi, B. (1975). The Social Psychology of Religion. Routledge & Kegan Paul: London.Google Scholar
Babigian, K. J.Gardner, E. A.Miles, H. C. & Romano, J. (1965). Diagnostic consistency and change in a follow-up study of 1215 patients. American Journal of Psychiatry 121, 895–901.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bagley, C. (1971). Mental illness in immigrant minorities in London. Journal of Biosocial Science 3, 449–459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binitie, A. (1975). A factor analytical study of depression across cultures (African and European). British Journal of Psychiatry 127, 559–563.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Burke, A. W. (1974). First admissions and planning in Jamaica. Social Psychiatry 9, 39–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carothers, J. C. (1947). A study of mental derangement in Africans, and an attempt to explain its peculiarities, more especially in relation to the African attitude to life. Journal of Mental Science 93, 548–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cochrane, R. (1977). Mental illness in immigrants to England and Wales. An analysis of mental hospital admissions, 1971. Social Psychiatry 12, 25–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Community Relations Commission (1976 a). Aspects of Mental Health in a Multi-Cultural Society. CRC: London.Google Scholar
Community Relations Commission (1976 b). Ethnic Minorities in Britain: Statistical Data (ed. Kohler, D.). CRC: London.Google Scholar
Constant, J. (1972). Les bouffées delirantes en Guadeloupe: Essai d'analyse sémiologique, psychologique et culturelle à propos de 112 observations. Psychopathologie Africaine 8, 169–199.Google Scholar
Cooper, B. (1966). Psychiatric disorder in hospital and general practice. Social Psychiatry 1, 7–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Copeland, J. R. M. (1968). Aspects of mental illness in West African students. Social Psychiatry 3, 7–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coxhill, H. W. & Grubb, K. (eds.) (1968). World Christian Handbook. Lutterworth Press: London.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1976). Psychiatric Hospitals and Units in England and Wales. In-patient Statistics from the Mental Health Enquiry for the Year 1973. HMSO: London.Google Scholar
Eitinger, L. (1960). The symptomatology of mental disease among refugees in Norway. Journal of Mental Science 106, 947–966.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ey, H. (1960). Manuel de Psychiatrie. Masson: Paris.Google Scholar
Field, M. J. (1958). Mental disorder in rural Ghana. Journal of Mental Science 104, 1043–1051.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frost, I. (1938). Home sickness and immigrant psychoses; Austrian and German domestic servants. Journal of Mental Science 84, 801–847.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
General Register Office (1968). A Glossary of Mental Disorders. Studies on Medical and Postgraduate Subjects No. 22. HMSO: London.Google Scholar
Giggs, J. (1973). High rates of schizophrenia among immigrants in Nottingham. Nursing Times 69, 20 09, 1210–1212.Google ScholarPubMed
Gordon, E. B. (1965). Mentally ill West Indian immigrants. British Journal of Psychiatry 111, 877–887.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hashmi, F. (1968). Community psychiatric problems among Birmingham immigrants. British Journalof Social Psychiatry 2, 196–201.Google Scholar
Hemsi, L. K. (1967). Psychiatric morbidity of West Indian immigrants. Social Psychiatry 2, 95–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitch, P. J. (1975). Migration and mental illness in a northern city (2 vols.). Ph.D. Thesis: University of Bradford.Google Scholar
Hitch, P. J. & Rack, P. H. (1976). Paranoid symptomatology among Polish refugees in Britain. Paper presented at the Symposium on Problems of Comparative Transcultural Psychiatry in Europe. Kiel: Germany.Google Scholar
Jaspers, K. (1963). General Psychopathology (transl. Hoenig, J. and Hamilton, M. W.). Manchester University Press: Manchester.Google Scholar
Jilek, W. G.Jilek-Aall, L. (1970). Transient psychoses in Africans. Psychiatrica clinica 3, 337–364.Google ScholarPubMed
Kidd, C. B. (1965). Psychiatric morbidity among students. British Journal of Preventive and Social Medicine 19, 143–150.Google ScholarPubMed
Kiev, A. (1963). Beliefs and delusions of West Indian immigrants to London. British Journal of Psychiatry 109, 356–363.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kiev, A. (1965). Psychiatric morbidity of West Indian immigrants in an urban group practice. British Journal of Psychiatry 111, 51–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kino, F. F. (1951). Aliens' paranoid reaction. Journal of Mental Science 97, 589–594.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klaf, F. S. (1961). Schizophrenia – a hundred years ago and today. Journal of Mental Science 107, 819–827.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kosmin, B. A. (1975). Jews in an Inner London Borough: A Study of the Jewish Population of the London Borough of Hackney based upon the 1971 Census. Research Unit, the Board of Deputies of British Jews: London.Google Scholar
Krupinski, J. (1967). Sociological aspects of mental ill-health in migrants. Social Science and Medicine 1, 267–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambo, T. A. (1955). The role of cultural factors in paranoid psychosis among the Yoruba tribe. Journal of Mental Science 101, 239–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leff, J. P., Fischer, M. & Bertelsen, A. (1976). A cross-national epidemiological study of mania. British Journal of Psychiatry 129, 428–442.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Littlewood, R.Lipsedge, M. (1981). Acute psychotic reactions in Caribbean-born patients. Psychological Medicine 11, 303–318.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lucas, C. J., Sainsbury, P. & Collins, J. G. (1962). A social and clinical study of delusions in schizophrenia. Journal of Mental Science 108, 747–758.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Malzberg, B. & Lee, E. S. (1956). Migration and Mental Disease: A Study of First Admissions to Hospital for Mental Disease, New York 1939–41. Social Science Research Council: New York.Google Scholar
Manley, D. (1960). The West Indian background. In The West Indian Comes to England (ed. Ruck, S. K.), pp. 3–48, A report prepared by the Family Welfare Association for the Trustees of the London Parochial Charities. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.Google Scholar
Mezey, A. G. (1960). Psychiatric illness in Hungarian refugees. Journal of Mental Science 106, 628–637.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, H. B. M. (1969), Cultural factors in the genesis of schizophrenia. In The Transmission of Schizophrenia (ed. Rosenthal, D. and Kety, S. S.), pp. 137–153. Pergamon Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Ødegaard, O. (1932). Emigration and insanity. Study of mental disease among Norwegian population of Minnesota. Acta psychiatrica et neurologica, Supplement 4, 1–206.Google Scholar
Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (1973). Census of Great Britain, 1971: County Report, Greater London Part I. HMSO: London.Google Scholar
Pinsent, R. J. F. H. (1963). Morbidity in an immigrant population. Lancet ii, 437–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinto, R. T. (1970). A study of psychiatric illness among Asians in the Camberwell area. M.Phil. Dissertation: University of London.Google Scholar
Political and Economic Planning (1976). The Facts of Racial Disadvantage: A National Survey (ed. Smith, D. J.), PEP: London.Google Scholar
Pouget, R., Cirbax, R., Chiariny, J. F. & Castelnau, D. (1975). Troubles psychiatriques chez les français musulmans immigrés. Annales medico-psychologiques 133, 541–561.Google Scholar
Prince, R. (1967). The changing picture of depressive syndromes in Africa. Canadian Journal of African Studies 1, 177–192.Google Scholar
Roberts, B. H. & Myers, J. K. (1954). Religion, national origin, immigration and mental illness. American Journal of Psychiatry 110, 759–764.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Royes, K. (1962). The incidence and features of psychoses in a Caribbean community.In Proceedings of the Third World Congress of Psychiatry 1961,Montreal, vol. 2, pp. 1121–1125.Google Scholar
Runions, J. E. (1974). Religion and psychiatric practice. Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal 19, 79–85.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rwegellera, G. G. C. (1970). Mental illness in Africans and West Indians of African origin living in London. M.Phil. Thesis: University of London.Google Scholar
Rwegellera, G. G. C. (1977). Psychiatric morbidity among West Africans and West Indians living in London. Psychological Medicine 7, 317–329.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Satkunanayagam, V. (1963). Mental illness among Indian and Ceylonese in London. Academic Postgraduate Diploma in Psychiatric Medicine: University of London.Google Scholar
Schneider, K. (1930). Über primitiven Beziehungswahn. Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie 127, 725–735.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seligman, C. G. (1929). Temperament, conflict and psychosis in a stoneage population. British Journal of Mental Psychology 9, 187–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherman, M. & Sherman, I. C. (1934). Psychotic syndromes and social backgrounds. In The Problems of Mental Disorder; a Study Undertaken by the Committee on Psychiatric Investigations, National Research Council (ed. Bentley, I. M. and Cowdray, E. C.), pp. 339–345. McGraw-Hill: New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tewfik, G. I. & Okasha, A. (1965). Psychosis and immigration. Postgraduate Medical Journal 41, 603–612.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thomas, A. & Sillen, S. (1972). Racism and Psychiatry. Brunner/Mazel: New York.Google Scholar
Tooth, G. (1950). Studies in Menial Illness in the Gold Coast. Colonial Research Publication No. 6. HMSO: London.Google Scholar
Weinstein, E. A. (1962). Cultural Aspects of Delusion. Collier-Macmillan: London.Google Scholar
Wilson, B. (1971). Religious Sects: A Sociological Study. Weiderfeld and Nicolson: London.Google Scholar
Wing, J. K. (1972).Epidemiology of schizophrenia. British Journal of Hospital Medicine 8, 364–368.Google Scholar