Clinicians’ information habits, patients’ knowledge of diagnoses and etiological concepts in four different clinical samples

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Abstract
A total of 230 psychiatric inpatients and their physicians in charge took part in semistandardized interviews. Patients suffering from schizophrenia received information less frequently and less comprehensively than other patients. The label of schizophrenia was often paraphrased or not communicated at all; patients knew their diagnosis less exactly than other subgroups. Asked to indicate the most important cause of their disorder, neurotics tended to name their living conditions (60%), and addicts preferred to blame themselves (73%). Only 26% of the patients with affective disorders or schizophrenia accepted the idea of their disorders as diseases in a medical sense, whereas the psychiatrists favored a biological concept in more than 90% of the cases. The findings stress the need to improve communication between patients and psychiatrists as regards information on illness and treatment.

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