Assessing Psychosis in African American Clients

Abstract

In the current chapter, we review this literature on diagnosing psychotic disorders in Afi'ican American clients, highlighting the leading theories regarding the increased prevalence of psychotic disorder diagnoses in African Americans. Given the importance of symptom severity assessment in diagnosis, we also provide a summary of major clinical rating scales and review the literature on the assessment of positive, negative, and disorganized symptoms in African Americans. We also present new data on two of the most common clinical rating scales used to assess these symptoms since little published data exists regarding psychometric properties of major rating scales in African American and Caucasian clients separately, and conclude with recommendations regarding the assessment of psychosis in African American clients. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)