Various studies have shown: (i) increased rates of psychoses in immigrants to Britain, and a particularly high rate of schizophrenia in the West Indian- and West African-born; and (ii) a greater proportion of atypical psychoses in immigrants. A retrospective study of psychotic inpatients from a London psychiatric unit demonstrated increased rates of schizophrenia in patients from the Caribbean and West Africa. These patients included a high proportion of those with paranoid and religious phenomenology, those with frequent changes of diagnosis, formal admissions, and married women. The West Indian-born had been in Britain for nearly 10 years before first seeing a psychiatrist and, if they had an illness with religious symptomatology, were likely to have been in hospital for only 3 weeks. Rates of schizophrenia without paranoid phenomenology were similar in each ethnic group. It is suggested that the increase in the diagnosis of schizophrenia in the West Indian-born, and possibly in the West African-born, may be due in part to the occurrence of acute psychotic reactions which are diagnosed as schizophrenia. © 1981, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.

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West Indies central nervous system schizophrenia Europe paranoia human Africa, Western Asia psychosis Ethnic Groups comparative study geographic distribution Great Britain religion marriage Ireland Adolescent male female Socioeconomic Factors Psychotic Disorders major clinical study adult migration ethnic or racial aspects Emigration and Immigration Middle Age