Research on culture-bound syndromes: New directions

Author(s): Rogler, L. H.

Journal/Book: Amer J Psychiat. 1999; 156: 1400 K St N W, Ste 1101, Washington, DC 20005, USA. Amer Psychiatric Press, Inc. 1322-1327.

Abstract: The unprecedented inclusion of culture-bound syndromes in DSM-IV provides the opportunity for highlighting the need to study such syndromes and the occasion for developing a research agenda to study them. The growing ethnic and cultural diversity of the U.S, population presents a challenge to the mental health field to develop truly cross-cultural approaches to mental health research and services. In this article, the authors provide a critique of previous analyses of the relationship between culture-bound syndromes and psychiatric diagnoses. They highlight the problems in previous classificatory exercises, which tend to focus on subsuming the culture-bound syndromes into psychiatric categories and fail to fully investigate these syndromes on their own terms. A detailed research program based on four key questions is presented both to understand culture-bound syndromes within their cultural context and to analyze the relationship between these syndromes and psychiatric disorders. Results of over a decade of research on ataques de nervios, a Latino-Caribbean cultural syndrome, are used to illustrate this research program. The four questions focus on the nature of the phenomenon, the social-cultural location of sufferers, the relationship of culture-bound syndromes to psychiatric disorders, and the social and psychiatric history of the syndrome in the life course of the sufferer.

Note: Article Guarnaccia PJ, Rutgers State Univ, Inst Hlth Hlth Care Policy & Aging Res, 30 Coll Ave, New Brunswick,NJ 08901 USA

Keyword(s): ATAQUES-DE-NERVIOS; DSM-III-R; PUERTO-RICO; PSYCHIATRIC EPIDEMIOLOGY; MENTAL-HEALTH; PREVALENCE; DISORDERS; CLASSIFICATION; DIAGNOSIS; LIFETIME

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