Giving Compass' Take:

• Patti Verbanas explains that researchers found that depressed African Americans were more likely to be misdiagnosed than other groups. Genetics, poverty, and discrimination also played a role. 

• How can funders help to address the bias that leads to this type of problem? 

• Learn about a group advocating for the mental health of black women. 

African-Americans with severe depression are more likely to be misdiagnosed as having schizophrenia, according to a new study.

The study, which appears in the journal Psychiatric Services, examined the medical records of 1,657 people at a community behavioral health clinic that included screening for major depression as part of its assessment for schizophrenia in new patients.

The study, which looked at 599 blacks and 1,058 non-Latino whites, found that clinicians failed to effectively weigh mood symptoms when diagnosing schizophrenia among African Americans, suggesting that racial bias, whether conscious or subconscious, is one factor in the diagnosis of schizophrenia in this population.

Other factors include genetics, poverty, and discrimination, as well as symptoms caused by infections and malnutrition early in life. “Individuals from a racial minority group also might feel hopelessness or mistrust when being assessed by someone from a racial majority group, which could affect how they act and how the clinician interprets symptoms,” Gara says.

The findings suggest that clinicians put more emphasis on psychotic than depressive symptoms in African Americans, which skews diagnoses toward schizophrenia even when these patients show similar depressive and manic symptoms as white patients.

Read the full article about depressed African Americans by Patti Verbanas at Futurity.