Schizophrenia

Abstract

Psychiatric textbooks have tended to take a surprisingly narrow or simplistic view when it comes to examining how far this disorder varies between different peoples. Around 1970 one was still meeting statements to the effect that “within rough limits rates are similar in all those cultures that have been carefully studied”[203, p 221], or that “the universal incidence of the disease weighs heavily against any arguments that environmental and psychological factors of any specific kind play an important part in causing the disease” [387]. Such statements are surprising because there has for long been evidence suggesting that the disease is more frequent in one people than in another, and because one would expect some variation of this type regardless of the etiology. Quite marked differences in the hospitalization rates for schizophrenia were reported soon after the term came into use, for instance among North American immigrant groups and between Jews and non-Jews in Europe. By 1953 Böök [61] had reported a prevalence rate in north Sweden which was significantly higher than those reported by other Scandinavian investigators employing the same type of measure. To imply that rates do not vary significantly from one society to another has for a long time, therefore, been incorrect, even though it might be true that the variations do not follow any recognizable pattern, or in some instances could be attributable to factors which are peripheral to psychiatry’s true interests.