Assudani, HA; (2014) Culture and the Comprehensive Assessment of At Risk Mental States (CAARMS). Doctoral thesis (D.Clin.Psy), UCL (University College London).

Abstract

This thesis focused on the role of culture in psychotic symptom measures, and consists of three parts. Part 1 presents a systematic literature review on the reliability and validity of translated semi/structured interview measures of psychosis. Nineteen publications based on nine semi/structured interview measures of psychosis were reviewed and deemed to be of varying quality. The review highlights the intricacy of language translation and the necessity of the development of a quality assessment tool for studies focusing on psychometric properties of clinical measures. Part 2 is an empirical paper that investigated if clinicians’ familiarity with their client’s culture (i.e. cultural familiarity) predicts the accuracy of culturally mediated attenuated psychotic symptoms identified using the Comprehensive Assessment of At Risk Mental States (CAARMS). Three constructs of cultural familiarity were used - cultural knowledge, cultural similarity and cultural self-efficacy. Results suggest that cultural knowledge and cultural similarity predict one’s accuracy on culturally mediated attenuated psychotic symptoms utilising the CAARMS. Neither cultural self-efficacy, nor years of experience were predictors. Part 3 is a critical appraisal which reflects on how the researcher came to the research study and issues that arose during the research process. A discussion on culture and mental health problems was also included.

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