This study suggests that physiological symptoms may be useful as indicators of psychiatric disturbance in a village Eskimo population and that particular symptoms with psychiatric significance may differ cross-culturally. The study examined the potential of various symptom items of the Health Opinion Survey (HOS) to measure psychological disturbance in a village Eskimo population. Responses of 70 village Eskimos who were hospitalized for psychiatric disorder were compared with responses of 25 village Eskimos, obtained by Murphy and Hughes twenty years earlier. On 9 of 18 HOS items, the hospitalized Eskimos had significantly higher levels of psychiatric symptoms.
Notes
From: Fortuine, Robert et al. 1993. The Health of the Inuit of North America: A Bibliography from the Earliest Times through 1990. University of Alaska Anchorage. Citation number 2299.