PERCEPTION OF PROBLEMS IN PSYCHIATRIC-INPATIENTS - DENIAL, RACE AND SERVICE USAGE

The importance of the ways in which people with psychiatric problems c onstrue their difficulties is considered in this study. A study of 60 consecutive acute admissions to wards serving an inner city area in Lo ndon (UK) is reported. The results indicated that 55.8 % of the sample did not consider themselves to have psychiatric problems: 15.4 % said that they had no problems at all and 40.4 % thought they had physical or social problems rather than psychiatric ones. Although more younge r people denied that they had problems and none of those who denied ha ving problems sought the help of a general practitioner, there was a s ignificant association between diagnosis and perception of problems, a nd when this was taken into account these associations disappeared. Of those who denied having any problems, only one person had no police i nvolvement on admission. Significantly more of those who denied proble ms were compulsorily admitted and there were significant differences i n the proportions of whites and African-Caribbeans reporting different types of problems. African-Caribbeans were both more likely to consid er that they had no problems at all and to be compulsorily admitted. A lthough African-Caribbeans were also more likely to be diagnosed as ex periencing psychotic disorders, it was their ethnic status rather than their diagnostic category that determined both their status on admiss ion and the way in which they construed their problems. Denial among w hites tended to take the form of somatisation or construction of probl ems in terms of social difficulties.