Depression and Schizophrenia in Hospitalized Black and White Mental Patients

Abstract

Project psychiatrists interviewed 192 hospitalized mental patients, ages 20 to 59 years, with a structured mental state examination. Each patient received two diagnoses, one by the hospital and an independent one by the project. According to the hospital diagnoses, race and diagnosis were strongly associated: a diagnosis of schizophrenia rather than affective illness was given more frequently to blacks than whites. According to the project's diagnoses, race and diagnosis were independent. A comparison of the patterns of psychopathology exhibited by blacks and whites confirms the absence of any gross differences in abnormal behavior between them. When comparisons were made specific to depressives, however, blacks were found to have a quality to their depression different from whites.