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Objective: The study reported in this paper was aimed at developing understanding of schizophrenia-related knowledge and preferences surrounding professional help, medication, and treatment methods among Chinese living in Shanghai, China. Method: A multi-stage cluster sampling method in which participants were taken from six of the 20 districts in Shanghai was adopted for this study. The 522 Shanghai Chinese participants were presented with a vignette describing an individual with schizophrenia before being asked questions designed to assess both their understanding of schizophrenia and their preferences surrounding professional help, medication, and treatment methods. A comparative approach was adopted to identify similarities and differences between our findings and those of two previous studies on the mental health literacy of Chinese living in Melbourne, Australia and Hong Kong, respectively. Results: A lower percentage of Shanghai Chinese than Hong Kong Chinese and Australian Chinese could correctly identify the condition described in the vignette as a case of acute schizophrenia. Although a far lower percentage of Shanghai Chinese endorsed the use of counselling professionals, a much higher percentage of the same group endorsed Chinese medical doctors and herbal medication. A lower percentage of Shanghai Chinese endorsed ''lifestyle changes'' as a strategy for dealing with schizophrenia than did Chinese subjects living in Australia and Hong Kong. On the other hand, a higher percentage of Shanghai residents endorsed psychiatric treatment and the traditional Chinese practices of ''eating nutritious food/taking supplements'' than among the other two groups of Chinese. Conclusions: This study highlights the need for educating Chinese in Shanghai to improve their schizophrenia literacy. The contents of the education programmes will need to take into consideration the socially and culturally driven beliefs that may have been influencing the knowledge and preferences of Shanghai Chinese concerning professional help, medication, and treatment methods for people suffering from schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of work–family conflict on well-being outcomes is well established, as is the role of social support in buffering perceptions of conflict. What is less well understood is how these relationships vary for different groups of respondents. Using a two-wave longitudinal design with a 12-month time lag and samples of employees (total N = 2183) from Australia, New Zealand, China and Hong Kong, the present research investigated whether the mediating relationships between social support, work–family conflict and well-being outcomes were moderated by gender, geographical region and the presence of dependants in the household. Supervisor support and family support were associated with lower work–family conflict, and hence reduced psychological strain and increased job and family satisfaction, for women and for employees in China and Hong Kong, but not for employees in Australia and New Zealand. However, the presence of dependants was not a significant moderator. Our findings illustrate the importance of exploring gender and national differences in work–family conflict research, particularly the investigation of cross-domain effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Photographs of 50 women were rated for attractiveness, health, and fertility recorded by four sets of participants—Rural-Chinese (n = 50), Chinese participants in Hong Kong (n = 50), Chinese participants living in the United Kingdom (n = 50), and participants self-identifying as “Caucasian” living in the United Kingdom. The results suggest that a polynomial function of Body Mass Index (kg/m2) is the best predictor of all three judgments in all four observer groups. In contrast, shape cues, such as the waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), seem to play a relatively small role. Shape cues do consistently account for a greater proportion of the variance in all three Chinese groups than for the Caucasian participants, implying a greater role for shape in the Chinese participants’ judgments. This result may reflect the competing pressures between the healthy range for shape and body mass in the Chinese populations versus the role of visual diet in influencing body preferences in different cultural environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]