To test an attribution-emotion model of reactions to chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis, 30 significant others of 30 adult patients with chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis were administered a semi-structured interview about their beliefs regarding the patient's illness and completed questionnaire measures of distress and behavioural responses to the patient. Spon...

Background: Although scientific research on the etiology of mental disorders has improved the knowledge of biogenetic and psychosocial aspects related to the onset of mental illness, stigmatizing attitudes and behaviors are still very prevalent and pose a significant social problem. Aim: The aim of this study was to deepen the knowledge of how attitudes toward people with mental illness are aff...

of schizophrenia Das et al (2006) assessed the efficacy of interventions to change explanatory models of schizophrenia among relatives of people with schizophrenia in India. They claim that their educational intervention presented the biomedical model without dismissing non-biomedical models and that indigenous beliefs were not challenged. Depending on the way in which the intervention was deli...

Sixty Indian muslim women outpatients with multiple somatic complaints of nonorganic origin were assessed for alexithymia and abnormal illness behavior using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) and the Illness Behaviour Assessment Schedule (IBAS). Alexithymia represented by TAS scores correlated best with the IBAS variables of communication of affect, somatic illness causal beliefs and denial. ...

OBJECTIVE This study investigated a cognitive-behavioural model of adjustment to multiple sclerosis (MS). It aimed to determine the contribution of cognitions and behaviours to the explanation of two distinct adjustment outcomes above and beyond measures of MS severity. Illness-related functional impairment was anticipated to be most strongly related to unhelpful thoughts and behaviours that we...

Aims and method To assess adolescents' perceptions of their psychiatric illness and the role of various demographic factors in a Pakistani setting. Adolescents with various psychiatric diagnoses were interviewed using a structured questionnaire including the Illness Perceptions Questionnaire-Revised (IPQ-R). Results Fifty-two adolescents with various psychiatric illnesses were interviewed; thei...

The aim of our studies is to examine how contradictions affect causal beliefs. For example, the discovery that your colleague Mark who has been following diet A suffers from iron deficiency may lead you to revise your belief that diet A provides a sufficient supply of iron. Would you also revise your belief that it causes you to lose weight? Experiment 1 shows that our belief that Mark will los...

BACKGROUND New genetic associations with obesity are rapidly being discovered. People's causal beliefs about obesity may influence their obesity-related behaviors. Little is known about genetic compared to lifestyle causal beliefs regarding obesity, and obesity-related diseases, among minority populations. This study examined genetic and lifestyle causal beliefs about obesity and 3 obesity-rela...