The effect of a racially consonant medical context on adjustment of African‐American patients to physical disability

Abstract

The effect of a racially consonant medical context on reaction to physical handicap stemming from disease is explored in a sample of 90 African‐American patients with vitiligo, a disfiguring skin disorder. The adjustment of sixty‐nine patients in a predominantly black hospital setting is compared to that of twenty‐one patients in a predominantly white hospital setting. The patients in the predominantly black clinic, where the physicians, staff, and clientele are African‐American, show significantly better adjustment than do African‐American patients in a medical context that is primarily white. Interviews with a random sample of one‐third of the patients in each clinic show that patients are significantly more positive to black physicians and a black hospital setting and that other patients of the same race provide informal networks of support, as does the predominantly African‐American community in which the hospital is located. Implications for both medical theory and practice are suggested on the basis of these findings.