著者

樫原 潤 亀山 晶子 山川 樹 村中 昌紀 松浦 隆信 坂本 真士

出版者

公益社団法人 日本心理学会

雑誌

心理学研究 (ISSN:00215236)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.89, no.5, pp.520-526, 2018

被引用文献数

2

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<p>Depression is a heterogeneous disorder, and a subtype with atypical symptoms called “modern type depression” (MTD) has been recently proposed in Japan. The present study explored perceptions of MTD among healthcare providers, with the aim of contributing to debates on how to deliver effective treatments for MTD. Survey participants were 86 nurses and 60 professional caregivers working for a general hospital. They read two vignettes that described fictitious individuals with either traditional type depression with melancholic features, or MTD, and then answered how they perceived these individuals on Likert-scale items. A series of paired t-tests showed the following cognitive biases on the MTD vignette: (a) the possibility of being diagnosed as depressed, the severity of symptoms, and the effectiveness of psychotherapies were rated lower; (b) lower intentions of helping those individuals and stronger rejecting attitudes were expressed; (c) the precipitating cause of the disorder was more frequently attributed to internal and controllable factors. The discussion highlighted how these cognitive biases held by healthcare providers lower the quality of treatment of MTD.</p>