The Open Sociology Journal

2009, 2 : 23-29
Published online 2009 June 12. DOI: 10.2174/1874946100902010023
Publisher ID: TOSOCIJ-2-23

The Prestige of Somatic and Mental Disorders: A Survey Among Health Professionals and a Representative General Population Sample

Jan H. Rosenvinge , Gunn Petterse and Reidun Olstad
University of Tromsø, Department of Psychology, Huginbakken 32, N-9037 Tromsø, Norway

ABSTRACT

Objective:

The purpose of the paper is to study the ranking of disorders according to their perceived importance. Previous studies suggest that rankings according to the perceived or attributed “value” or importance create informal hierarchies of disorders on normative attitudes about symptoms, treatment and outcome. In this work we studied disorder ranking in the general population and among health professionals, and some possible explaining factors.

Data Source:

1,127 adults representative of the Norwegian National Population Register participated, of whom 220 representatives were of the broad range of health professionals

Study Design:

Respondents completed a survey questionnaire within a cross-sectional design

Data Source:

,127 adults representative of the Norwegian National Population Register participated, of whom 220 representatives were of the broad range of health professionals

Principal findings:

Somatic disorders were given the highest rank, but mental disorders were ranked higher than in previous studies. Modest effects were found for explaining variables.

Conclusion:

The general population rankings of disorders do not differ greatly from rankings made by health professionals. The impact of personalized variables was modest, indicating the need for future studies to explore the impact of more social and culture variables.

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