Patient attitudes regarding causes of depression: implications for psychoeducation.

OBJECTIVE Patient attitudes toward mental illness are an important determinant of treatment compliance and treatment outcome. A patient's age, sex, style of thinking, lifestyle, and beliefs all may influence perceptions. This study aimed to determine patient attitudes. METHOD Patients with a depressive disorder (n = 102) who were referred for psychiatric consultation and treatment to a community general hospitial psychiatric outpatient clinic completed a 9-item self-report questionnaire to determine their perceptions of the biological, psychological, cognitive, and spiritual causes of their depressive disorder. RESULTS Women were more likely to endorse their depressive disorder as related to a biological abnormality. With respect to age, older individuals were less likely to identify cognitive factors and loss of spirituality as causal factors in their depression. CONCLUSIONS A relation exists between demographic variables, including sex and age, and beliefs about causes of depression and related disorders. These findings have implications for refining patient psychoeducation.