How does culture affect diagnosis? Essay

Culture kitty light upon the diagnosis and word of psychical disorders, as divers(prenominal) socializations induce different attitudes to intellectual disorders. In Morocco, for example, it is thought you flock cop a rational illness haply by encountering some sorcery, such as stepping on it. They truly believe amiable disorders come from sorcery and evil things. This affects word and how the mentally ill person is seen they atomic number 18 often feargond as thither is a possibility the evil could spread. Culture can in addition affect how much assimilation a patient is standardizedly to disclose. Casas (1995) rig that a lot of African Americans do non like to sh ar their personal information with people of a different race. Sue and Sue (1992) put in that legion(predicate) Asian Americans dont like to talk about their emotions and are much reluctant to admit to having a mental illness. Even when they do admit to organism ill, they are non forthcoming in terms of discussing their symptoms with the therapist. This can affect diagnosis, as not all the symptoms may wealthy person been menti integrityd and so a suitable curriculum of treatment cannot be easily formulated. nonpareil school of thought believes that culture does not affect diagnosis as mental disorders are scientific. The DSM was developed in the regular army and is lend oneselfd widely in some other cultures. This is a valid use if mental disorders are clearly define with specific features and symptoms.Basically, mental disorders are scientifically defined illnesses that are explained in a scientific way. Research evidence comes from lees study (2006). This was conducted in Korea deliberately to see if the DSM-IV-TR was valid in a non-Western culture, and it was found that it was for ADHD. On the flip side, in that respect are studies that have shown that culture can affect diagnosis. There are studies that have shown that culture can play an important role in diagnosis. For example, symptoms that are seen in Western countries as characterising schizophrenia, such as auditory hallucinations, are interpreted in other countries as showing obstinacy by a spirit, which render someone special in a prescribed way, not in a cast out disorder way. Therefore, depending on ethnic recitals of what is homo measured, the DSM is not always valid. A clinician from one culture must be certain that a patient from another culture is guided by their own ashes of reference.It does seem to be the case that there are actual cultural disparitys in mental disorders like schizophrenia. It has been reported that catatonicschizophrenia is on the decline and this could be because of health measures that prevent the development of this typeface of schizophrenia. Chandrasena (1986) reported more(prenominal) incidences of catatonia in Sri Lanka (21%) compared with 5% among British white people. However, it was also found that in Sri Lanka it was less po ssible that patients had received early interventions with drug treatment. This was not therefore a cultural difference in the attitude to the mental disorder, solely a difference in treatment availability. After considering the pivotal role that culture plays in a persons mental health, ideas have been put send on to overcome cultural bias in diagnosis. Ideas include moving away from dialect on freshman stray symptoms and interpretation as well as centre on more negative symptoms are they are more objectively measured.On problem with schizophrenia is that, scratch line rank symptoms tend to be weighted as more important when making a diagnosis. First rank symptoms include interview voices, delusions and disorganised envisageing. However, first rank symptoms are also more open to interpretation, which essence that there might be cultural issues with opine to interpretation. Flaum et al. (1991) found a want of reliability when using the DSM with regard to first rank symptom s and that was with a similar assay from one culture. Therefore, it is likely that such undependability would be magnified if we used first rank symptoms across different cultures. Similarly, with regard to diagnosis there should be greater emphasis on symptoms that are objectively measured. Flaum suggests that negative symptoms (for example poverty of speech) are more objectively assessed and measured than compulsory symptoms, like hallucinations. Minimising first rank symptoms and placing more emphasis on negative symptoms would compressed less unreliability with regard to diagnosis across cultures.Culture-bound syndromes are mental health problems (or other illnesses) with a set of symptoms found and recognised as an illness only if in one culture. Penis fright is an example. In some cultures males may think that their penis will retract into their bodies- and women may think the same about their breasts. This is cognize as genital retraction syndrome. such panics have be en found around the world but mainly in Africa and Asia. other example is Hikikomori, a condition which has attracted carry on in Japan recently, affecting mainly male teens that are otherwise short healthy. The condition makes them withdraw completely, locking themselves in their rooms for long periods of time (years). The Nipponese government havedescribed Hikikomori as a social disorder sooner than a mental disorder, and say it is articulation of the economic downturn the country is freeing through.