E illness practical experience that had been followed by a series of prompts aimed at exploring patients’ illness models. Prompts were based on a model of illness representation in the health psychology literature, the Illness Representation Model,7 which consists of 5 representational dimensions of illness: label, result in, timeline, consequence, and ideas of management or treatment. The interview also explored patients’ attitudes and beliefs concerning 3 health-seeking tactics: disclosure towards the doctor, psychiatric medication, and psychotherapy. A Spanish version was ready in advance. Interviews were performed by telephone within per week of the purchase KJ Pyr 9 clinic pay a visit to. They lasted 40 to 60 minutes. The interviews were performed in English or Spanish by a bilingual clinical psychology graduate student (NG). The interview was not taped, considering that initial efforts to involve taping had slowed recruitment, but the interviewer took comprehensive, detailed, practically verbatim notes, preparing a transcript on the patients’ responses straight away following each interview.espite the high prevalence of depression and anxiousness issues in key care settings, most depressed and anxious patients fail to receive productive remedy for their symptoms.1,2 Various barriers to care have already been identified, including low prices of physician recognition,three medication prescription, and referral.4 To date, nevertheless, couple of research have examined the active part of the patient in interpreting and managing mental wellness complications. Tiny is known of how patients’ decision-making processes relate to perceptions and beliefs about mental disorder and its treatment.5 This qualitative study investigates primary care patients’ conceptual labels of depressive and anxiousness symptoms, and builds a theoretical model linking these representations with attitudes toward remedy.DMETHODS ParticipantsParticipants have been recruited from a major care clinic serving a multi-ethnic, low-income population in the Bronx. Consecutive patients presenting in the clinic were approached in between May possibly 15 and June 15, 2001 as theyAnalysesAll 3 authors participated in the analysis. Within a preliminary, descriptive phase, we reviewed transcripts and created a coding method to determine essential attributes of illness narratives. Within a second phase, we developed a theoretical model for understanding hyperlinks between conceptual representations of illness and attitudes toward therapy. Participants’ narratives were classified into 5 representational categories reflecting contrasting models from the relationships among social reality, the body, and emotional knowledge. Further analyses revealed that eachReceived in the Albert Einstein College PubMed ID:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20007744 of Medicine (AK), Montefiore Health-related Center (GS), and Fordham University (NG), Bronx, NY. Address correspondence and requests for reprints to Dr. Karasz: Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 3544 Jerome Ave., Bronx, NY 10467 (e-mail: [email protected]).Karasz et al., Psychological Distress Amongst Low-income PatientsJGIMof the five representational categories was associated having a distinct constellation of attitudes toward therapy.Table two. Psychological ModelI don’t know what I’d call my state of thoughts. I’d say it is depression. Effectively it is actually just basically, you get stuck in self-pity. It is actually comforting to feel like you might be a low life. It justifies performing poor stuff to your self. You want to be alone. I don’t need to be about individuals. I don’t desire to be around other people, simply because I know the impact that a b.