The Folk Psychiatry Model: Developing a Measure of Lay Perceptions of PTSD

Whereas existing data verify the importance of support networks in facilitating resilience following trauma, the sociocultural perceptions of posttrauma difficulties that provide context for these interactions remain largely unexplored. Folk psychiatry models propose that lay explanations of mental illness can be quantified along distinct moralizing, medicalizing, and psychologizing dimensions. The current project aimed to develop a trauma-specific measure capturing lay explanations of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) based on this framework. Data were collected from three samples of Mechanical Turk respondents (N-1 = 367; N-2 = 365; N-3 = 401) as well as an independent sample of university students (N-4 = 311). Factor analysis of the final, 13-item Folk Psychiatry Measure-PTSD (FPM-P) indicated close fit of a correlated three-factor model in MTurk and student respondents. Across samples, moralizing beliefs about PTSD (e.g., people with PTSD lack a moral compass) evidenced moderate-to-strong correlations with general attitudes toward those with mental illness, including positive associations with authoritarianism, social restrictiveness, blame, anger, and perceived dangerousness. Negative associations with benevolence and support for community-based care were also noted. Medicalizing beliefs (e.g., PTSD is caused by a chemical imbalance) demonstrated more modest associations with negative attitudes, as noted through weak correlations with increased authoritarianism, anger, and lower benevolence toward those experiencing psychological difficulties. Finally, psychologizing explanations (e.g., people with poor relationships and low social support are at greater risk of developing PTSD) evidenced weak but positive associations with benevolence and pity for those with mental health concerns. Implications and cultural-based nuances of the scale are discussed.