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. 2007 Sep;100(9):423-6.
doi: 10.1177/014107680710000919.

Schizophrenia, an illness and a metaphor: analysis of the use of the term 'schizophrenia' in the UK national newspapers

Arun K Chopra  1 , Gillian A Doody
Affiliations

Schizophrenia, an illness and a metaphor: analysis of the use of the term 'schizophrenia' in the UK national newspapers

Arun K Chopra et al. J R Soc Med. 2007 Sep.

Abstract

Objective: To determine whether schizophrenia is a commonly used 'illness as metaphor', to compare the use of schizophrenia and cancer as illnesses as metaphor, and to determine if there is a difference in such usage between the UK and USA.

Design: An examination of articles published in the British press.

Setting: 600 articles from six British newspapers: the Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, the Mirror, the Sun and the Daily Mail.

Main outcome measures: Use of schizophrenia and cancer as metaphors.

Results: Schizophrenia was more likely to be metaphorized than cancer (P<0.001) in the UK press, but was less likely to be used as metaphor in the UK press than in the US press (P<0.001). 11% of articles containing the term schizophrenia used the word as a metaphor.

Conclusions: Clinicians need to be aware that patients, carers and the public might have a different understanding of the word we use as a diagnosis.

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