Schizophrenia Culture-Related Diagnostic Issues
Schizophrenia Culture-Related Diagnostic Issues
Cultural and socioeconomic factors must be considered, particularly when the individual and the clinician do not share the same cultural and socioeconomic background. Ideas that appear to be delusional in one culture (e.g., witchcraft) may be commonly held in another. In some cultures, visual or auditory hallucinations with a religious content (e.g., hearing God’s voice) are a normal part of religious experience. In addition, the assessment of disorganized speech may be made difficult by linguistic variation in narrative styles across cultures. The assessment of affect requires sensitivity to differences in styles of emotional expression, eye contact, and body language, which vary across cultures. If the assessment is conducted in a language that is different from the individual’s primary language, care must be taken to ensure that alogia is not related to linguistic barriers. In certain cultures, distress may take the form of hallucinations or pseudo-hallucinations and overvalued ideas that may present clinically similar to true psychosis but are normative to the patient’s subgroup.
