Causes, cures, and compliance : bible believers' causal attributions and preferred treatments for mental disorders

The importance of providing culturally-competent treatment is increasingly being emphasized in the mental health literature. However, the effect of religion as a cultural determinant of treatment utilization is largely understudied. Previous studies suggest that religious fundamentalists are more likely to endorse spiritual and demonic explanations for mental illness and are less willing to seek help from secular mental health professionals. However, these studies are based on small, regional, non-probability samples and have failed to adequately control for the effects of other sociodemographic variables such as education. This study utilized data from two nationally representative surveys, the 1996 and 1998 General Social Surveys (GSS), to examine the effect of beliefs about the authorship, inerrancy, and interpretation of the Bible on beliefs about the perceived causes and preferred treatments for mental disorders. Respondents to the 1996 MacArthur Mental Health Module were presented with a vignette that described someone experiencing one of four disorders: schizophrenia, major depression. alcoholism, or drug addiction.