Discriminant Analysis of Behavioral Symptomatology in Hospitalized Hispanic and Anglo Patients

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Abstract
The objective of the present study was to assess differences in the problematic behavior of Hispanic and Anglo hospitalized inpatients. Case records were randomly selected from the files of the Colorado State Hospital for a final sample of 50 Hispanic and 50 Anglo patients. A list of 62 problem variables were constructed from problem lists contained within each individual case record. Hispanic patients were found to have significantly more problems than Anglo patients. A stepwise discriminant analysis was performed on the two ethnic groups using the 62 problem variables as predictors. The ethnic groups were the dependent variables and problems were the independent variables. This resulted in the successful separation of groups by problem variable. The results indicate that socioeconomic conditions alone are insufficient in explaining the prevalence of mental illness within the Hispanic inpatient population. The results also showed a pattern of problematic characteristics that Hispanic patients appear to share. The nature of these difficulties involve communication problems and resistance to the traditional hospital milieu. The implications of these findings are discussed.

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