Pharmacotherapy for Southeast Asian psychiatric patients

Article Abstract:

The approximately one million Southeast Asian refugees who have settled in the United States since 1975 have, as predicted, suffered high rates of psychiatric symptoms. Many factors, including language barriers and cultural issues, have prevented these people from utilizing mental health services. To ease this problem, treatment centers have been established in neighborhoods where refugees live. These clinics have generated a large body of literature with regard to the psychiatric problems of Southeast Asian refugees, and several important issues have emerged. First, the language barrier and cultural influences are a significant problem in reporting, experiencing, and interpreting symptoms. Second, refugee experiences are complex, making clinical interpretation difficult. Third, refugees tend to be less expressive and direct than Anglo-Americans; this often leads to miscommunication and noncompliance, which is particularly great in the Southeast Asian refugee population. Fourth, Southeast Asians tend to expect swift effects from Western medicine, severe side effects, and only superficial control of symptoms. These issues can be particularly difficult when, for example, a patient is depressed and is prescribed an antidepressant that may not provide a noticeable effect for a few weeks. Fifth, the family is important in assessment and treatment processes. Other issues include ethnic differences in drug response, and the integration of Western treatment with traditional Asian herbal medicine. Several guidelines are recommended: information about beliefs regarding illness, treatment and health should be explored with Southeast Asian patients as should their beliefs about ancient traditional therapies; compliance should be discussed and patients may need to be monitored; key family members should be involved in diagnosis and treatment; and dosing differences should be considered based on smaller body size and response to medication. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Psychological aspects, Social aspects, Demographic aspects, Psychopharmacology, Refugees, Southeast Asian, Southeast Asian refugees

---

Multiple muscle enzyme release with psychiatric illness

Article Abstract:

Research has shown that high blood levels of creatine phosphokinase (CPK), a muscle enzyme, occur in a majority of newly admitted psychiatric patients with mania, psychotic depression or schizophrenia. In order to investigate whether other enzyme abnormalities occur in these same patients, the hospital records of physically healthy patients who had been given a discharge diagnosis of mania (100 patients), depression (136), schizophrenia (85), or schizoaffective disorder (39), as well as the records of a comparison group of 90 surgery patients were studied. Significant associations between serum-level concentrations of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT) were found in all the psychiatric groups, indicating that the two enzymes tend to be released together. No associations between LDH and SGOT were found in the (nonpsychiatric) surgical patients. CPK, LDH and SGOT are all muscle-derived enzymes which are commonly released after strenuous exercise. The release of LDH and SGOT found in the psychiatric populations appears to result from the muscle tension and agitation often found in newly admitted psychiatric patients. As well, inertia and inactivity, which are common in newly admitted depressed and schizophrenic patients, can lead to the lack of oxygenation of local tissue (hypoxia) and a compensatory release of muscle enzymes. A separate analysis that excluded patients who were taking neuroleptics (antipsychotic medications) provided similar results, suggesting that associations between LDH and SGOT are related to psychiatric illness and are not influenced by the administration of psychotropic drugs. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

Physiological aspects, Mental illness, Mental disorders

---

Cultural relativism and psychiatric illness

Article Abstract:

Psychiatry has long been associated with sociology and cultural anthropology. These social sciences have been influential in the development of cultural relativism and its application to psychiatry. Cultural relativism is a doctrine which claims that culture influences basic human characteristics such as beliefs, feelings, and behavior. This application of cultural relativism has often taken the form of a harmful challenge to the validity of psychiatry. Contemporary psychiatrists who believe in biological determinism, which holds biology to be the underlying determinant of the diversity of behavior, tend to disregard cultural relativism or regard it as trivial, if not nonsensical. The concept of cultural relativism is reviewed and its applications to illness and historical and theoretical implications are discussed. Its different aspects, powers, and limitations are discussed.

Health aspects, Analysis, Psychiatric research, Cultural relativism

Similar abstracts:

• Abstracts: A multivariate hierarchical model for studying psychological change within married couples
• Abstracts: A psychometric perspective on psychophysiological measures. Detecting back irrelevant responding on the personality assessment inventory in a psychiatric inpatient setting
• Abstracts: Cross-cultural personality assessment in psychiatric populations: the NEO-PI-R in the People's Republic of China
• Abstracts: Psychiatric symptoms in refugee families from South East Asia: therapeutic challenges. Cognitive behavioral therapy of depression: theory, treatment, and empirical status
• Abstracts: Effects of statutes requiring psychiatrists to report suspected sexual abuse of children. Legal competency in a case of pedophilia: advertising on the internet

This website is not affiliated with document authors or copyright owners. This page is provided for informational purposes only. Unintentional errors are possible.