Expressed emotion： Is it cross-culturally psychological construct——The study in Iran     

Anahita Khodabakhshi  Koolaee 《美中教育评论》2009,6(1):54-57,66

It is clear from past research that family atmosphere influences the course of many mental illness such as schizophrenia. EE （emotional express） is a measure of emotional response of a relative towards a person with a diagnosed health problem （Lobbon, et al., 2006）. EE has three aspects like critical, hostile, and emotionally over-involved attitudes that relatives have toward patients. The goals of this study is to investigate EE＇s role in Eastern countries especially in Iran, compared to Western countries. 120 schizophrenia patients and their key relatives are selected to answer the family questionnaire. The results indicated that in Iranian families are regarded to emotionally over involvement attitude more seen than western countries. Parents who were emotional over involvement report self- blaming and more controlling parents than other parents. When the EE in Iranian families were compared to western countries, the differences were clear. For instance, in western countries hostile and critical attitude were more than Iranian families. In addition, they are less self-blaming and controlling their patients. But in Eastern countries mental illness is viewed as the fate or predestination, so there are fewer attempts to follow up therapeutic interventions. It is important to note that the role of culture is explored in explaining the specific manner in which EE relates to relapse among Iranian families, also for programming and family psycho- education interventions.  相似文献