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Development of the illness perception questionnaire mental health
- Authors:
- WITTEMAN Cilia, BOLKS Lisabeth, HUTSCHEMAEKERS Giel
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Mental Health, 20(2), 2011, pp.115-125.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- London
It has been shown that influencing patients’ negative perceptions of their illnesses is conductive to recovery and effective coping with the illness. This article considers the effect of clients’ problem perceptions in mental health care, and describes the development of a brief instrument to chart the experience of clients with psychological problems. The aim of the study was to develop a concise general version of the Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R), a questionnaire originally developed for somatic illness, to assess how clients experience their mental health problems. The IPQ-R was adapted to psychological complaints; in particular adaptations were required to the scales that assess clients' perceptions of what their problem actually is, and what its causes are. The adapted instrument, the IPQ-Mental Health (IPQ-MH), consists of 3 parts: the identity scale; the structure scale; and the cause scale. The IPQ-MH was administered to 274 mental health clients, and psychometric analyses subsequently performed over the scores. The results showed that the identity scale of the IPQ-MH differentiates different clients, and the cause scale reliably measures clients' attributions of causes to their mental problems. The structure scale of the IPQ-MH replicates that of the original IPQ-R. The article concludes that the IPQ-MH can reliably assess clients' mental health problem perceptions.