Understanding/Promoting Mental Health Literacy Based on Biological Explanations

基于生物学解释理解/促进心理健康素养

• 批准号: 8719848
• 负责人: WOO-KYOUNG AHN
• 金额: $ 40.79万
• 依托单位: YALE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-08-12 至 2016-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8719848
• 关键词: Accounting; Adverse effects; Anxiety; Attitude; Behavior; Belief; Biological; Biological Factors; Brain; Brain Diseases; Chemicals; Classification; Client; Clinical; Data; Dimensions; Disease; Educational process of instructing; Empathy; Epigenetic Process; Feeling; General Population; Generalized Anxiety Disorder; Genes; Intervention; Knowledge; Measures; Mental Depression; Mental Health; Mental disorders; Mentally Ill Persons; Neurobiology; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurosciences; Patients; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Plant Roots; Population; Prejudice; Psychopathology; Psychotherapy; Reading; Reporting; Research Domain Criteria; Schizophrenia; Signal Transduction; Social Distance; Social Phobia; Symptoms; Testing; base; clinical practice; clinically relevant; combat; depressive symptoms; health literacy; improved; innovation; novel; outcome forecast; prognostic; psychologic; psychosocial; research and development; treatment planning; trend; Accounting; Adverse effects; Anxiety; Attitude; Behavior; Belief; Biological; Biological Factors; Brain; Brain Diseases; Chemicals; Classification; Client; Clinical; Data; Dimensions; Disease; Educational process of instructing; Empathy; Epigenetic Process; Feeling; General Population; Generalized Anxiety Disorder; Genes; Intervention; Knowledge; Measures; Mental Depression; Mental Health; Mental disorders; Mentally Ill Persons; Neurobiology; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurosciences; Patients; Pharmaceutical Preparations; Plant Roots; Population; Prejudice; Psychopathology; Psychotherapy; Reading; Reporting; Research Domain Criteria; Schizophrenia; Signal Transduction; Social Distance; Social Phobia; Symptoms; Testing; base; clinical practice; clinically relevant; combat; depressive symptoms; health literacy; improved; innovation; novel; outcome forecast; prognostic; psychologic; psychosocial; research and development; treatment planning; trend

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant). As clinical neuroscience rapidly progresses, mental disorders are increasingly explained in terms of biological mechanisms (e.g., depression is caused by chemical imbalances). The proposed project will examine (i) whether laypeople and practicing clinicians are open to such biological explanations, (ii) how biological explanations impact opinions about mental disorders among clinicians and those who display symptoms, and (iii) how negative effects of biological accounts can be reduced. (i) Is mental health literacy in state to readily accept new neurobiological accounts of mental disorders? Both laypeople and clinicians will read about patients and rate biological or non-biological causes with respect to convincingness, or usefulness in clinical practice. The proposed project will test preliminary data suggesting that biological accounts are more convincing when a mental disorder is already viewed as more biologically rooted (e.g., schizophrenia), but not when a disorder is considered to be more psychological (e.g., social phobia). Identifying such obstacles for improving mental health literacy among clinicians and laypeople is imperative in finding ways to effectively disseminate new biological explanations to them. (ii) What are the effects of biological accounts of mental disorders? Although biological attributions of mental disorders were initially thought to decrease prejudice against mental disorders by reducing the blame placed on patients, recent studies reported that biological accounts can make those with disorders appear more dangerous and unchangeable, leading to increased prejudice. Unlike previous studies, the proposed project will investigate the effects of biological attributions of mental disorders in clinicians and in people with mental disorder symptoms. For instance, the proposed project will validate alarming preliminary results indicating that when people with depressive symptoms attribute their symptoms to biological factors, they become more pessimistic about their prognoses and feelings of control over their symptoms. Also, preliminary results in practicing clinicians show that biological explanations can make them less empathetic toward hypothetical clients with mental disorders. These results highlight perils in blindly disseminating biological information. (iii) How can we combat negative effects of biological explanations in disseminating such information to the general public and clinicians? Recently, we found that providing treatability information was effective in reducing social distance when a mental disorder was described as caused by biological factors but not when caused by non- biological ones. The proposed project will further examine whether information on the efficacy of medications may be more effective in reducing prejudice against biologically rooted mental disorders, and information on efficacy of psychotherapy in reducing prejudice against non-biologically rooted ones. In addition, the proposed project will examine whether pessimistic prognoses associated with biological explanations could be reduced by teaching laypeople with depressive symptoms about neural plasticity (e.g., brains are malleable) and epigenetic (e.g., genes do not predetermine one's condition).

描述（由申请人提供）。随着临床神经科学的迅速发展，精神障碍越来越多地解释了生物学机制（例如，抑郁症是由化学失衡引起的）。拟议的项目将检查（i）外行和实践临床医生是否对这种生物学解释开放，（ii）生物学解释如何影响临床医生和表现出症状的人的观点，以及（iii）如何减少生物学账目的负面影响。 （i）国家的心理健康素养很容易接受精神障碍的新神经生物学说明？外行人和临床医生都会阅读有关患者的知识，并在临床实践中对生物学或非生物原因评估生物学或非生物原因。拟议的项目将测试初步数据 当精神障碍已经被视为生物学上的植根（例如，精神分裂症）时，生物学叙述更具说服力，而当疾病被认为是心理上的（例如，社交恐惧症）时，则不会。必须在寻找有效传播新的生物学解释的方法时，确定临床医生和外行的这种改善心理健康素养的障碍。 （ii）精神疾病的生物学叙述有什么影响？尽管最初认为精神障碍的生物学归因 通过减少对患者的责备来减少对精神障碍的偏见，最近的研究报告说，生物学账目可以使患有疾病的人看起来更危险和不变，从而增加了偏见。与以前的研究不同，拟议的项目将研究临床医生和精神障碍症状的人的精神障碍生物学归因的影响。例如，拟议的项目将验证令人震惊的初步结果，表明当患有抑郁症状的人将其症状归因于生物学因素时，他们对自己的预后和对症状的控制感变得更加悲观。此外，执业临床医生的初步结果表明，生物学解释可以使他们对精神障碍的假设客户的同情心减少。这些结果突出了盲目传播生物学信息的危险。 （iii）我们如何应对将这些信息传播给公共和临床医生的生物解释的负面影响？最近，我们发现，当精神疾病被描述为由生物学因素引起的，而不是由非生物学引起的，提供治疗性信息可有效减少社会距离。拟议的项目将进一步研究有关药物疗效的信息，是否在减少对生物学根源精神疾病的偏见以及心理治疗疗效减少对非生物学上的偏见方面的疗效方面是否更有效。此外，拟议的项目将检查是否可以通过教授有关神经可塑性的抑郁症状（例如，大脑具有延展性）和表观遗传学的抑郁症状来减少与生物学解释相关的悲观预后（例如，基因没有预先确定的病情）。