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Ein Irrtum der Gebildeten? Gespaltene Persönlichkeit und Schizophrenie

2007; Thieme Medical Publishers (Germany); Volume: 34; Issue: 8 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1055/s-2006-940098

1439-0876

Julia Borsche, Georg Schomerus, Herbert Matschinger, Matthias C. Angermeyer,

Mental Health Treatment and Access

Among the public schizophrenia is often thought to denote split personality. Our aim is to identify factors influencing the prevalence of this error. METHODS In a representative population survey in Germany (n=5,025), respondents received an open question about their associations with the word schizophrenia and a closed question how strongly they agree that split personality is a symptom of the disease.27% associated split personality with schizophrenia, 67.4% agreed this being a symptom. Higher education was associated with answering/endorsing split personality in both questions. Familiarity with mental illness and living in the old German Laender increased unprompted mention of the concept.Mistaking schizophrenia for split personality is an error of the well-educated that is not favourably altered by familiarity with mental illness. Targeting this misconception seems to be difficult and could necessitate a new illness denomination.