Title: Cultural Perspectives on Mental Health
Headings: Module 7: Cultural Perspectives on Mental Health
Module 7: Cultural Perspectives on Mental Health
Stigma, Discrimination, and Mental Health
Cultural Perspectives on Mental Illness
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Footnotes

Content: 10) In a 2007 study, approximately 63% of African Americans viewed depression as a “personal weakness”, 30% reported that they would deal with depression themselves, and only one-third reported that they would accept medication for depression if prescribed by a medical professional. ( 11) Because African Americans are less likely to receive proper diagnosis and treatment for depression and are more likely to have depression for longer periods, African Americans’ perceptions of mental illness and the medical profession should be taken into account in efforts to improve mental health care access. ( 12)
Although the reasons for stigmatization are not consistent across communities or cultures, perceived stigma by individuals living with mental illness is reported internationally. For instance, the World Mental Health Surveys showed that stigma was closely associated with anxiety and mood disorders among adults reporting significant disability. The survey data, which included responses from 16 countries in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and the South Pacific, showed that 22.1% of participants from developing countries and 11.7% of participants from developed countries experienced embarrassment and discrimination due to their mental illness. However, the authors note that these figures likely underestimate the extent of stigma associated with mental illness since they only evaluated data on anxiety and mood disorders. ( 13)
Finally, presenting mental health care services in culturally-sensitive ways may be essential to increasing access to and usage of mental health care services, as local beliefs about mental health often differ from the Western biomedical perspective on mental illness. For example, one study comparing Indian and American attitudes toward mental illness surveyed students at a university in the Himalayan region of Northern India and at a university in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States. The Indian students were more likely to view depression as arising from personally controllable causes (e.g. failure to achieve goals) and to “endorse social support and spiritual reflection or relaxation” as ways to deal with depression. The authors report that “conceptualizations and treatments” for depression should take into account diverse perspectives on mental illness in order to maximize the effectiveness of mental health care delivery programs. (