Association of Cross-Cultural Differences in Psychiatric Morbidity With Cultural Values: A Secondary Data Analysis

Background: Associations were analyzed between cultural values/attitudes and psychiatric morbidity/health complaints in different cultures, drawing on data from two independent cross-cultural studies. It was assumed that cross-cultural differences in psychiatric disorders and health complaints could be related to differences in cultural values. Specifically, it was assumed that more traditional values are related to lower prevalences of psychiatric morbidity. Methods: Data from (1) a multi-center study on cultural values (Schwartz, 1994) and (2) the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborative Study on Psychological Problems in General Health Care (Üstün & Sartorius, 1995) were jointly analyzed. Six cultural values (autonomy, conservatism, preference for hierarchy, self-mastery, egalitarian commitment, and harmony with nature) were related to regionally corresponding data on psychiatric morbidity (ICD-10 diagnoses) and types of symptoms presented (Üstün & Sartorius, 1995). Data of eleven countries constitute the unit of analysis. Results: By and large, values representative of traditional societies (conservatism, hierarchy, and selfmastery) were negatively correlated with psychiatric diagnoses and symptoms, whereas values typical of modern/postmodern societies (autonomy and egalitarian commitment) were positively correlated with psychiatric diagnoses and symptoms. Ordinal regression analysis explained moderate to high levels of cross-cultural variance by cultural values. Conclusions: The explorative study indicates that psychiatric morbidity and cultural values may be closely intertwined. Possible theoretical explanations and implications as well as limitations of the current analyses are discussed (German J Psychiatry 2001; 4:17-23) .