TABLE 2—

Patients’ Attitudes and Beliefs, by Race^a

	African Americans, n = 188		Whites, n = 686
	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	P
Health attitudes/belief scalesb
Positive evaluations of physicians	75.59	14.85	76.84	15.82	.33
Positive evaluation of VA care	75.63	13.47	75.56	15.43	.94
Reliance on religion	78.44	19.37	68.93	22.70	< .0001
Self-reported disease severity	44.48	37.58	46.32	37.24	.55
Trust in peoplec	41.76	38.79	60.28	39.79	< .0001
Optimism	59.22	16.29	59.81	17.64	.68
Class discriminationd	19.68	30.20	13.82	23.55	.01
Racial discriminationd	36.42	32.44	5.01	12.83	< .0001
Health belief itemse
I can overcome illness without a professional	2.16	1.05	2.40	1.05	.006
Home remedies are better	2.28	1.00	2.36	.94	.29
If I’m sick, my behavior determines the outcome	3.37	1.24	3.23	1.07	.18
I understand my health better than most doctors do	2.69	1.23	2.69	1.07	.99

Note. VA = Department of Veterans Affairs.

^a Sample (n = 874) includes all patients with complete data on race, sociodemographics, clinical variables, and health belief items and scales. The results using all available data were similar to the results reported here.

^b Scales range from 0 to 100 with higher values indicating a higher degree of what the statement described.

^c Higher scores indicate greater trust.

^d Higher scores indicate more discrimination.

^e Higher scores indicate greater likelihood of agreeing with the statement, on a scale of 1 to 5.