Researching Persons with Mental Illness

by Rosalind J. Dworkin

Overview

Can the mentally ill be interviewed? What kind of reliability can be expected in their responses? What about the ethics of informed consent? Although standard social science methodologies have been used successfully to study mental health, researching issues with mentally ill individuals introduces unique theoretical and methodological issues.

Focusing on the study of mentally ill adults at the individual level of analysis, this book explores such topics as: how theories of human behaviour that have been developed for a general population may have limited applicability to the population under study; how symptoms are defined and measured; ways to plan and implement research; uses of alternative data sources such as clinical

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803936034
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	05/30/1992
Series:	Applied Social Research Methods , #30
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	5.91(w) x 9.06(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgements	vii
1.	Who Are the Mentally Ill?	1
	The Prevalence of Mental Illness	2
	Mental Illness in Special Populations	2
	The National Agenda in Mental Illness Research	7
	The Purpose of the Book	8
	Notes	9
2.	Applying Theory to the Study of Mentally Ill Persons	10
	Etiological Theories	11
	Theories of Patient Behavior	16
	Contexts of Treatment	19
	The Biopsychosocial Model	20
	Conclusion	22
3.	Diagnosis and Other Measurements of Illness	24
	What Is a Case?	24
	Conceptualizing Diagnosis	26
	Diagnostic Nosologies	28
	Diagnostic Reliability	33
	Gold Standards and Diagnostic Markers	36
	Diagnostic Instrumentation	37
	Instruments Measuring Symptoms	41
4.	Special Problems in Design	45
	Populations and Sampling Frames	45
	Case Identification	48
	Longitudinal Designs	49
	Experimental Designs	50
	Participant Observation	55
5.	The Mentally Ill as Respondents	59
	Characteristics of Serious Mental Illness	59
	Reliability and Validity of Data	69
	Proxy Interviews	72
	Ethical Issues	75
	Interviewer Selection	79
6.	Alternative Data Sources	83
	Clinical Charts	83
	Institutional Statistics	98
	Data Banks	101
	Conclusion	103
7.	Research in a Multidisciplinary Milieu	104
	Working With Multidisciplinary Teams	104
	Gaining Access	110
	Writing for Different Audiences	113
	Opportunities and Contributions	115
	References	118
	Index	136
	About the Author	141