[An error of the educated--split personality and schizophrenia].

Objective: Among the public schizophrenia is often thought to denote split personality. Our aim is to identify factors influencing the prevalence of this error. METHODS In a representative population survey in Germany (n=5,025), respondents received an open question about their associations with the word schizophrenia and a closed question how strongly they agree that split personality is a symptom of the disease.

The association of schizophrenia with split personality is not an ubiquitous phenomenon: results from population studies in Russia and Germany.

A widely prevalent stereotype connected with schizophrenia is its misperception as split personality. We examine whether the popular meaning of the term schizophrenia differs in countries of different cultural imprint by conducting an international cross-cultural comparison of public associations with the word schizophrenia in a Western and a Non-Western industrialized country. We analyze data from two representative population surveys in Novosibirsk, Russia (n = 745), and large German cities (n = 952) that used identical questions and sampling procedures.

Public knowledge about causes and treatment for schizophrenia: a representative population study.

Research on public knowledge about schizophrenia has so far examined various closed questions eliciting recognition-based knowledge rather than unprompted knowledge. We aim to explore the unprompted popular knowledge regarding causes and treatment of schizophrenia. In a representative survey conducted in Germany in 2001 (N = 5025), two open questions asked respondents to name possible causes and treatment options for schizophrenia.