This is self responded data from the patient, it tells you more about how they perceive themselves than how a doctor diagnosed them.
Discussion
it sais if their doctor has diagnosed them with a condition? there is littleroom for interpretation in self reporting of that I'd presume
When conducting research on mental patients, the patients themselves are not reliable sources of information. This should be obvious.
If they wanted to do something useful they would access demographic records of mental institutions, for reliable and impartial data.
do you think this would yield different results? I mean maybe you could argue that conservatives are just less likely to admit having been diagnosed or even going to a doctor but just by observing people in public life, most that I'd categorize as mentally unstable would be liberals as well 🤔 but you can also argue about what even a mental inlless is etc.. so I guess nothing can be proven ever.. however I found hat stereotypes usually only propagate if there is some truth to it 😉