Department of Psychology, Texas Southern University, Houston, TX, 77225, United States.
Complement Ther Med. 2019 Aug;45:222-227. doi: 10.1016/j.ctim.2019.07.005. Epub 2019 Jul 3.
Racial disparities in mental and physical health status are a persistent problem for people of African ancestry in the United States (U.S.). The current study seeks to determine whether indigenous help-seeking is related to ethnic and racial differences in health problems in persons of African ancestry.
METHODS/DESIGN: Complex sampling produced a nationally representative sample of 3570 African Americans, 1623 Caribbean Blacks, and 1006 non-Hispanic Whites. All 3750 African Americans, 1438 (88.6%) African Caribbeans, and 891(88.6%) European Americans had relevant data for the current study. Respondents to the National Survey of American Life (NSAL) were studied with structural equation modeling (SEM) to evaluate a model of help seeking from "faith healers," "herbalists or rootworkers," or "astrologists or psychics." Mental and physical health were predicted by this indigenous help-seeking.
Consistent with the hypothesis, SEM analyses indicated better model fit for African Americans with greater similarly to African Caribbean respondents (r = .901, p = .001) than European Americans counterparts (r = -.332, p = .382) in measurement models. These analyses also showed African Americans' indigenous help-seeking was negatively correlated with lifetime diagnoses of any DSM psychiatric disorders but positively correlated with burden of chronic diseases. The association between indigenous help-seeking and professional diagnoses of chronic diseases was negative for Caribbean Blacks.
Culturally competent psychological or medical services by Western practitioners to people in the U.S Black population require attention to indigenous healing systems.
在美国，非裔人群的身心健康状况存在种族差异，这是一个长期存在的问题。本研究旨在确定在非裔人群中，本土寻求帮助的行为是否与健康问题的种族和民族差异有关。
方法/设计：采用复杂抽样方法，产生了一个具有全国代表性的样本，其中包括 3570 名非裔美国人、1623 名加勒比裔黑人以及 1006 名非西班牙裔白人。所有 3750 名非裔美国人、1438 名（88.6%）加勒比裔黑人以及 891 名（88.6%）欧洲裔美国人都有与本研究相关的数据。对全国生活调查（NSAL）的受访者进行结构方程建模（SEM）研究，以评估从“信仰疗愈师”、“草药师或根疗师”或“占星师或灵媒”寻求帮助的模型。心理健康和身体健康由这种本土寻求帮助来预测。
与假设一致，SEM 分析表明，在测量模型中，与欧洲裔美国人相比，与加勒比裔黑人受访者更相似的非裔美国人具有更好的模型拟合度（r=0.901，p=0.001）。这些分析还表明，非裔美国人的本土寻求帮助与终生任何 DSM 精神障碍的诊断呈负相关，但与慢性疾病负担呈正相关。对于加勒比裔黑人来说，本土寻求帮助与慢性疾病的专业诊断之间呈负相关。
西方从业者为美国黑人人口提供文化上合适的心理或医疗服务，需要关注本土的治疗系统。
