A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Depressive Symptom Manifestation: China and the United States

This study compared depressive symptomatology among Chinese psychiatric outpatients versus the general Chinese population, and across 3 cultural groups-Chinese, Chinese American, and Caucasian American students-by use of the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D; L. S. Radloff, 1977 ) and the Chinese Depression Scale ( N. Lin, 1989 ), translated from the CES-D. Results indicate that Chinese patients ( n = 112) endorsed a higher proportion of somatic symptoms than nonpatients ( n = 112). The intercultural comparison found that Chinese students ( n = 98) had the lowest levels of somatic depressive symptom endorsement compared to both U.S. groups ( n = 198). These findings seem to suggest that the tendency toward somatic symptom reporting is not any greater among Chinese populations but may be a function of having a mental illness or of help seeking in China.