Abstract

DIEGO, Soraya E. Castro-de  and  VICENTE-COLOMINA, Aida de. Causal attribution and beliefs toward mental disorders among general population and psychologists. An exploratory study. Clínica y Salud [online]. 2019, vol.30, n.2, pp.81-90.  Epub Nov 02, 2020. ISSN 2174-0550.  https://dx.doi.org/10.5093/clysa2019a13.

In order to compare beliefs toward mental disorders among the general population and psychologists and to analyze the differences on these beliefs between those who present biomedical vs. psychosocial causal attribution, an adapted version of the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R) was administered to a sample of 166 participants. Drug use and brain biochemical imbalance were the causes most agreed upon by the general population, whereas stress and drug use were the causes most agreed upon by psychologists. Participants in the general population who adopted a biological explanation considered these problems as significantly more chronic than participants who chose psychosocial causes. Psychologists perceive these problems as significantly less chronic, less cyclical, more controllable by the individual and the treatment, more coherent, and associated with less negative emotional representation than the general population.

Keywords : Illness perceptions; Mental disorders; Biomedical model; Causal attributions; IPQ-R.

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