The social context of mental illness. Individual, partner and parental resources

Contains fulltext : 56114.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Recent numbers show that a great deal of people experience mental illness during a period of time over the life course. Mental illness, however is not randomly distributed throughout society, but rather depends on one's social position in society. This book examines the link between the social context people live in and their risk to experience mental illness. In particular, it studies to what extent individual socioeconomic, social, cultural and personal resources contribute to mental illness and how changing levels of resources affect mental health. Furthermore, it examines the role of the partner and parents for the mental health of the individual. Does having a partner with lower resources or growing up in a family with lower resources affect people's adult mental health? Also, can mental health differences between people with lower and higher resources be explained by their subjective perceptions? These questions are examined with large-scale cross-sectional data representative of the Dutch general population. By studying a wide range of determinants simultaneously and more systematically, and by applying a partner perspective, a dynamic and explanatory perspective this research contributes to theoretical end methodological progress in the study of mental illness.RU Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, 27 oktober 2005Promotores : Scheepers, P.L.H., Felling, A.J.A.179 p