Poverty and Mental Illness: Patients' Perceptions of Poverty As an Etiological Factor in Their Illness

Fifty-nine percent of a state hospital sample of patients reported having experienced poverty. Social class was found to be inversely related to the experience of poverty but not to the feeling that it contributed to one's illness. Patients from higher social classes at times associated their illness with poverty more than did patients from lower social classes. However, patients experiencing poverty only in adult life reported that it contributed to their illness most often—more often than patients poor all their lives and much more often than patients poor only in childhood.