Lloyd H. Rogler

International Migrations: A Framework for Directing Research.

Current, large-scale, cross-cultural migrations offer promising research targets for the study of human adaptations. The opportunities for such research, however, remain substantially unused in the mainstream of psychology. The purpose here is to provide a framework encompassing components of the migration experience to aid such research. Contextual factors in the sending and receiving societies impinge on the components of the migration experience: social networks, socioeconomic status, and culture. The components, treated as intertwining transitional experiences in migration, should be juxtaposed in research to examine their effects. Gender and age mediate the effects. The framework aims to benefit research that implicates, directly or heuristically, the experiences of persons exposed to rapid sociocultural change and the consequences of such changes in their lives.

Biculturality among Puerto Rican adults in the United States

Identified the concept of acculturation as a cornerstone of immigration research, while questioning assumptions about zero-sum cultural change in acculturation scales and in procedures assessing biculturality. Involvements in the host society culture and the culture of origin should be assessed separately in order to reflect the complexities of the cultural interactions immigrants and their offspring experience. To evaluate this prescription, we convened focus groups of Puerto Rican adults to discuss their cultural experiences in Puerto Rico and in the United States. Discussions were content analyzed to develop acculturation items. Factor analysis of the responses of 403 first- and second-generation adults yielded two general factors, involvement in American culture and involvement in Puerto Rican culture, which demonstrated modest reliability, relative independence, and moderate correlations with traditional acculturation scale validators. Results of the study challenge the assumption of mutual cultural exclusivity in acculturative change; enable the measurement of degree of biculturality; and provide future directions for the assessment of acculturation in domains other than language usage. The concept of acculturation is integrated with recent formulations in community psychology which advocate a deeper and more extensive commitment to studying the implications of cultural phenomena and greater focus on the growing cultural diversity in the United States.

Issues of validity in the diagnostic interview schedule

The Diagnostic Interview Schedule, the chief instrument in contemporary studies in psychiatric epidemiology, enhances the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis and enables lay interviewers to closely reproduce psychiatric interviews. However, despite frequent references in the literature to the validity of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule, most studies fundamentally represent variations of reliability paradigms to the neglect of criterion-related validity. Mistaken assertions of validity persist in the psychometric language used to describe the Diagnostic Interview Schedule. This article examines the basis for claims and counterclaims of validity in accordance with standard psychometric definition, and identifies sources of erroneous reasoning in attempts to infer validity from reliability. The article presents a general framework organizing the process of diagnostic validation and discusses strategies for research seeking to validate psychiatric diagnoses achieved through the Diagnostic Interview Schedule.

Evaluation of mental health. Issues of memory in the diagnostic interview schedule

Research on the Diagnostic Interview Schedule, the chief instrument in contemporary studies in psychiatric epidemiology, has supported its utility in enabling lay interviewers to reproduce psychiatric interviews within an acceptable margin of error. Nonetheless, we propose that the Diagnostic Interview Schedule commits itself to dubious assumptions regarding the accuracy of human memory, shared by other history-taking efforts, by relying on retrospective reports of lifetime DSM-III symptoms and episodic dating of symptom spells. For more than a century, the fallibility of human memory has been the topic of intensive experimental and naturalistic study, a history which is relevant to the construction of instruments like the Diagnostic Interview Schedule. The continuing use of retrospective lifetime symptom reports suggests that this literature has been largely ignored in the development and administration of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule. Prospectively organized research is needed to disclose the limits of human memory for recent psychiatric events and the mediating conditions under which memory for such events can be accurately retrieved and improved.

Depression among Puerto Ricans in New York City: the Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

This study was conducted to analyze determinants of depression among Puerto Ricans by replicating and expanding earlier studies of depression among Cuban Americans and Mexican Americans. Data from the Hispanic Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1982–1984, were employed to examine depression and associated characteristics among Puerto Ricans. We utilized descriptive and multivariate statistics to examine the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D)-assessed depressive symptomatology and the DSM-III/DIS specification of major depression. The findings indicated that CES-D-assessed depressive symptomatology among Puerto Ricans was associated with female gender, disrupted marital status, poor health, and lower socioeconomic status as indicated by low education, low household income, age, and unemployment. For both 6-month and 1-month DIS major depression, age, disrupted marital status, and income of less than

Culturally sensitive psychotherapy for Puerto Rican children and adolescents: A program of treatment outcome research.

5,000 were significant risk factors. For 6-month DIS major depression, never-married persons had a higher risk for depression. For 1-month diagnoses, writing Spanish better than English was associated with lower risk. In general, our findings for Puerto Ricans were similar to studies of depression among other Hispanic groups. We remained unable to explain the relatively extreme levels of depression among Puerto Ricans in New York, though several probable explanations are elaborated. We emphasized the general need to expand the range of research designs and current risk models in epidemiology in an effort to capture the complexity of psychosocial and cultural processes relevant to psychological distress.

Culturally sensitizing psychiatric diagnosis. A framework for research.

Recognition of cultural distance between Hispanic clients and non-Hispanic therapists has prompted efforts to introduce culture into therapy, but there is little evidence that such efforts influence treatment outcomes. This article evaluates treatment outcomes from a program of research on modeling therapy with Puerto Ricans, targeting anxiety symptoms, acting-out behavior, and self-concept problems. Evaluation of outcomes confirmed the impact of culturally sensitive modeling therapy on anxiety symptoms and other selected target behaviors, but negative treatment effects also were evident. Results suggest that new approaches to psychotherapy for special populations, such as Hispanic children and adolescents, should be buttressed by programmatic research oriented toward the comparative evaluation of treatment outcomes and should be attuned to therapeutic processes mediating between culture and outcome.

Intergenerational Change in Ethnic Identity in the Puerto Rican Family.

The convergence between the demystification of psychiatric diagnosis and the increasing professional awareness of a cultural viewpoint offers the opportunity for research to systematically address issues of culturally valid diagnosis. To organize such research, a three-level hierarchical framework is developed which integrates hypotheses about the role of culture, beginning with symptom assessment, then the configuring of symptoms into disorders, and finally the interpersonal situation of the diagnostic interview. An examination of cross-cultural research and research on cultural minorities shows how errors accumulate from the first to the third level because of the neglect of culture or through misconceptions of the concept. The framework is premised upon the need to make programs of research the driving force behind long-range efforts to culturally sensitize psychiatric diagnosis.

The Puerto Rican Spiritualist as a Psychiatrist

This research focuses upon intergenerational changes in ethnic identity within the family. The analysis is guided by the theoretical postulate that ethnic identity is influenced by receptivity to external influences stemming from the host society and by length of exposure to the new host environment. Findings indicate that both education and age at arrival have significant independent effects upon the ethnic identity of mothers, fathers and children and that the childs education and age at arrival are significantly and independently related to changes in ethnic identity in the family.

Framing Research on Culture in Psychiatric Diagnosis: The Case of the DSM-IV

Preliminary study of schizophrenia in the lower class in San Juan, Puerto Rico, suggests that spiritualists often serve as psychiatrists and that spiritualism functions as a therapeutic outlet for mental illnesses. A mentally afflicted individual, alienated from his social groups by his deviant and enigmantic behavior may find that a group of spiritualist accepts his behavior. Participation in a spiritualist group serves to structure, define, and render the aberrant behavior institutionally meaningful. Spiritualism serves the afflicted without the stigma of attending a psychiatric clinic.