Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter

Hickling

A leading Jamaican psychiatrist has dismissed as flawed, frequent studies showing that black persons in Britain are more likely to be schizophrenic than their white compatriots.

Fred Hickling, a professor of psychiatry at the University of the West Indies (UWI), argued that such findings are arrived at often because British experts do not understand the cultural differences between the U.K.'s black and white populations and, as such, often misdiagnose the mental illnesses of minorities.

Newly-released study

His remarks came in the face of a newly-released study which has determined that ethnic minorities in Britain, particularly, African-Caribbean and black Caribbean nationals, are more likely to suffer from schizophrenia and pyschoses than native Britons.

According to an article published by Reuters on Tuesday, scientists from the Institute of Psychiatry in London found that in both men and women schizophrenia was nine times more common in African Caribbean people, six times more likely in black Africans and 2.5 times more common in non-British whites.

But Professor Hickling, who worked in Britain for five years, said research in this area has been split along racial lines for more than 20 years. He noted that white psychiatrists in Britain believe that this is the case but black psychiatrist believe otherwise.

Misdiagnoses

Professor Hickling said a major part of the problem is with the misdiagnoses, as some white psychiatrists do not understand the language and the culture of Caribbean people.

"So they label us with things that are not accurate," he told The Gleaner. "It is very easy for people to blame schizophrenia and label people. It is just another way of locking up Afro-Caribbean people."

Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disorder. People who suffer from schizophrenia may hear voices other people don't hear, or they may believe that others are reading their minds, controlling their thoughts, or plotting to harm them.

According to Professor Hickling, most black psychiatrists in the Caribbean would agree that there is a slight increase in schizophrenia in black Britons, as one would find in migrant populations.

He noted that scientific research in Jamaica has shown that there is no increased rate of schizophrenia in black men, noting that most Jamaicans who suffer from schizophrenia usually develop the disorder when they get to Britain. This, he said, is related to cultural issue - racism in particular.