Transcultural Psychiatry

The Current Status of the Intercultural Opening of the Psychiatric-Psychotherapeutic Care for Children and Adolescents from the Perspective of Professionals Children and adolescents with a migration background have a high demand for psychiatricpsychotherapeutic care in Germany. Nevertheless, they often do not receive the care needed, despite the Intercultural Opening, which aims at adjusting the services to their needs.The aim of the study is to get insights in the current status of the Intercultural Opening of the psychiatric- psychotherapeutic care system by examining the perspectives and needs of the staff working with this vulnerable population...

BACKGROUND: Elevated risk of psychosis for ethnic minority groups has generally been shown to be mitigated by high ethnic density. However, past survey studies examining UK Pakistani populations have shown an absence of protective ethnic density effects, which is not observed in other South Asian groups. AIMS: To assess the ethnic density effect at a local neighbourhood level, in the UK Pakistani population in East Lancashire. METHOD: Data was collected by the East Lancashire Early Intervention Service, identifying all cases of first episode psychosis (FEP) within their catchment area between 2012 and 2020...

OBJECTIVE: Australia has inadequate publicly available data regarding the use of involuntary psychiatric care. This study examined the association between patient clinical/demographic factors and involuntary psychiatric admission following initial psychiatric assessment in Royal Darwin Hospital. METHOD: Retrospective review of 638 psychiatric assessments followed by covariate analysis of patient variables associated with involuntary psychiatric admission. RESULTS: Most of the 225 psychiatric admissions were involuntary (92%)...

This review essay explores recent historical and anthropological literature on the emergence and development of transcultural psychiatry in the second half of the twentieth century. It examines how postcolonial psychiatry attempted to remove itself from its erstwhile colonial frameworks and strove to introduce new concepts and paradigms to make itself relevant in the context of decolonization and postwar reconstruction. The essay looks at both continuities and discontinuities between colonial and post-colonial transcultural psychiatry, asking how the recent surge of scholarly literature in this field engaged with these issues...

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an empirically supported psychotherapy that offers promise for the mental health of minoritised ethnic populations. Given the diversity of those presenting to inner-city services and barriers to accessing appropriate mental healthcare, we sought to develop a culturally syntonic ACT intervention for UK Vietnamese refugee communities in a practice-based partnership project between a National Health Service and local third-sector service in East London. The aim was to explore the feasibility, acceptability and impact of the adapted intervention to inform culturally inclusive clinical practice and future research...

Using a cohort of 544 postpartum mothers, 6 weeks to 12 months post-delivery in the largely rural Makueni County in Kenya, we aimed to determine: (1) the prevalence of postpartum depression (PPD) and the prevalence of each of the four domains of intimate partner violence (IPV), that is physical violence, sexual violence, emotional violence, and controlling behavior; (2) the co-occurrence of PPD and IPV; (3) risk factors and associations between sociodemographic variables and IPV, PPD and IPV and PPD co-occurring...

The current study used the McGill Illness Narrative Interview (MINI) to explore patients' ( n  = 6) and caregivers' ( n  = 3) narratives about how they identified and sought care for psychosis. Participants were recruited from an outpatient clinic at the Hospital Psiquiátrico Dr. Rafael Serrano , a public psychiatric hospital in Puebla, Mexico. All participants consented to complete semi-structured interviews in Spanish. Thematic analyses were used to inductively identify common themes in participants' narratives...

INTRODUCTION: Cultural variety in expressed symptom presentations of mental health problems creates difficulties in transcultural diagnostic assessments. This emphasizes the need of culturally sensitive diagnostic tools like the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI). Although the CFI is being implemented worldwide there is a lack of studies analyzing what kind of information it provides when used with new patients in routine psychiatric assessments, and how CFI information contributes to diagnostic evaluations...

To support resilience in contexts of migration, a deeper understanding of the experiences of both receiving communities and migrants is required. Research on the impacts of migration on community life is limited in contexts with high internal migration (i.e., migrating within one's country of origin). Evidence suggests that cultural similarity, community relationships, and access to resources may be protective factors that could be leveraged to support the mental health of internal migrants. The current study uses data drawn from a sample of pregnant Peruvian women ( N =  251), 87 of whom reported being internal migrants and 164 of whom reported being from the locale of the study (Lima, Perú)...

Objective: To identify the perceptions of the patients who received alternative care by telepsychiatry at the Cayetano Heredia Hospital (HCH). Methods: This research consisted of two phases: (1) transcultural adaptation of the Telehealth Usability Questionnaire (TUQ) with three experts and (2) application of the questionnaire in 183 patients from psychiatry in HCH. Nonparametric tests were used to determine the association between variables. Results: We applied 20 questions to 60 men and 123 women, with a median age of 45...

In many contemporary societies, misinformation, epistemic arrogance, and intergroup conflict pose serious threats to social cohesion and well-being. Wisdom may offer a potential antidote to these problems, with a recently identified Common Wisdom Model (CWM) suggesting that wisdom involves epistemic virtues such as intellectual humility, openness to change, and perspective-taking. However, it is unclear whether these virtues are central for folk concepts of wisdom in non-Western contexts. We explored this question by conducting focus group discussions with 174 participants from the Philippines and Sri Lanka, two countries facing socio-political and economic challenges...

Research with Indigenous communities has demonstrated the detrimental impacts of intergenerational trauma and disproportionate adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) on health and behavioral outcomes in adulthood. A more balanced narrative that includes positive childhood experiences is needed. The construct of benevolent childhood experiences (BCEs) facilitates assessment of positive early life experiences and their impact on well-being for Indigenous peoples. We consider associations between BCEs and well-being when taking into account ACEs and adult positive experiences...

Residential schools are commonly used in India to provide education for Indigenous youth, which requires young people to stay for long periods at distance from their families and communities. Internationally, there is clear evidence for the deleterious effects of residential schools on the mental health and social and community outcomes of Indigenous children, however little is known about the Indian Indigenous experience. This study examined the impact of residential schooling on Indigenous children's wellbeing and that of their communities, using data from an ethnographic research project in Attapadi, Kerala, including interviews, focus group discussions and participant observation with Indigenous communities...

Children living in urban slums in India are exposed to chronic stressors that increase their risk of developing mental disorders, but they remain a neglected group. Effective mental health interventions are needed; however, it is necessary to understand how mental health symptoms and needs are perceived and prioritized locally to tailor interventions for this population. We used an existing rapid ethnographic assessment approach to identify mental health problems from the perspective of children living in Indian slums, including local descriptions, perceived causes, impact, and coping behavior...

This prospective study examined the psychosocial adaptation of a community sample of newly resettled Syrian refugees in Canada ( N  = 235). Specifically, depressive symptoms, perceived stress, and perceived control were collected in Arabic at baseline and 1-year follow-up. Two theory-informed, cross-lagged panel models demonstrated that higher baseline depressive symptoms predicted lower perceived self-efficacy and lower perceived control at 1-year follow-up. Similarly, baseline depressive symptoms were concurrently correlated with higher perceived helplessness, lower perceived self-efficacy, and lower perceived control...

Eating disorders (EDs) have been documented in various cultural settings. A continuous increase in ED' rates among non-Western cultures (e.g., Arab cultures and East-Asian cultures) has been reported. We aimed to investigate the relations among culture, ED symptoms, and psychological features that are highly relevant in EDs through a cultural comparison of three groups. The groups included female university students in Israel with varying levels of exposure to Westernization: 118 Jewish students, 132 Arab students studying at a mixed university with a Jewish majority, and 111 Arab students studying at Sakhnin College, a college for Arab students only...

Despite the universal nature of suffering, few studies have examined how Indigenous ethnic minorities in non-western regions understand and respond to adversity. This study explored the epistemology of suffering among the Temiar ethnic group of Peninsular Malaysia using participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Interview transcripts of 43 participants were coded through inductive thematic analysis and a consensual qualitative approach. Three-tier themes were defined and named after subsequent analysis of core ideas and domains in the data...

The effectiveness of third-wave psychotherapies has been demonstrated in a range of mental and physical health conditions in Western cultures. However, little is known about the cultural appropriateness and effectiveness of third-wave psychotherapies for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) populations. This review aimed to critically evaluate cultural adaptations to third-wave psychotherapies and explored the effectiveness of these interventions on physical and mental health outcomes in GCC populations. Five bibliographic databases and grey literature were searched; both English and Arabic studies conducted in the GCC were included...

Sociocultural, mental, behavioral, and physical factors are interrelated associates of chronic health conditions-such as diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular disease-all of which are disproportionally high and drive much of the mortality and morbidity for Indigenous peoples. Indigenous worldviews conceptualize health holistically, with inseparability across social, spiritual, cultural, familial, mental, behavioral, physical, and social dimensions of wellness. Food, family, and culture are fundamental to Indigenous wellness...

Hazaras are a newly emerging community in Australia and limited research has explored their mental health. The first aim of this study was to explore levels of psychological distress and subjective well-being reported by Hazaras in Australia, and whether scores on psychosocial variables (self-compassion, self-coldness, acculturation, resilience, spirituality), psychological distress and domains of subjective well-being differed by sociodemographic groups. The second aim had two parts: (a) to examine bivariate relationships between the psychosocial variables, psychological distress and subjective well-being; and (b) to examine whether the psychosocial predictor variables independently contributed to subjective well-being and psychological distress when controlling for sociodemographic characteristics...