Determinants of Schizophrenic Relapse Among Latinos

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed study will examine the intersection of culture, language, and psychopathology through an exploration of how expressed emotion (EE) may influence Latino clients' recovery from schizophrenia. EE studies have revealed that family factors may predict the occurrence of future schizophrenic relapses for Latinos with schizophrenia (Karno et al., 1987). Yet, efforts to identify the mechanisms underlying this relationship have been limited (Hooley & Gotlib, 2000). To address this limitation, the proposed studies test a conceptual model based on self-efficacy. This variable has been shown to moderate individuals' physiological stress response (O'Leary & Brown, 1995), which, in turn, has been hypothesized to play a critical role in activating the physiological mechanisms that trigger the occurrence of a schizophrenic relapse (Nuechterlein & Dawson, 1984). As family members play a key role in shaping ill individuals' sense of self efficacy in a given domain (Rohrbaugh et al., 2004), it is hypothesized that caregivers' influence on their ill relatives' sense of self-efficacy with regard to their ability to recover may be a key mechanism underlying the EE-relapse association.