Overview
Dinesh Bhugra, Samson Tse, Roger Ng, Nori Takei in Routledge Handbook of Psychiatry in Asia, 2015
A particularly interesting aspect of mental health services in this region is the role of cultural beliefs about mental illness and their impact on care-giving. Prevalent beliefs about malevolent spirits causing psychiatric disorders, or no-less malevolent neighbors employing charms and black magic to make one sick, make work in mental health care challenging. Southeast Asians move between modern scientific medicine and traditional shamanic treatments quite smoothly. It is not uncommon to find a person with a PhD from a respectable Western university seeking the help of a bomoh for his mental health problems, while at the same time taking his psychiatric medications. Culture bound syndromes such as Amok and Latah have their origin in this region. The term Koro is thought to be of Malaysian origin, as are Amok and Latah.
Sexual Emergencies: A Psychiatrist's Perspective
R. Thara, Lakshmi Vijayakumar in Emergencies in Psychiatry in Low- and Middle-Income Countries, 2017
Patients with koro, which has been described as a culture-bound syndrome, experience sudden and intense anxiety due to the fear that the penis or even the entire male genitalia (vulva and nipples or breast in females) will recede into the body and possibly cause death. Koro may either be the primary disorder or secondary to other psychiatric disorders (schizophrenia, anxiety disorder, depression), diseases of the central nervous system (epilepsy, brain tumors), or withdrawal from drugs. Although the acute type of koro is more common, a less common chronic form has also been reported (Westermeyer 1989; Bernstein and Gaw 1990; Earleywine 2001; Kar 2005).
Questions and Answers
David Browne, Brenda Wright, Guy Molyneux, Mohamed Ahmed, Ijaz Hussain, Bangaru Raju, Michael Reilly in MRCPsych Paper I One-Best-Item MCQs, 2017
Answer: A. The term cultural fallacy is used to describe the difficulty that arises when a Western psychiatric diagnostic category is improperly used in a culture in which the category has no relevance. Ecological fallacy is a statistical term used to describe the fallacy that assumes that phenomena described at a macro (i.e. national) level will hold true at a micro (i.e. individual) level. Koro is a specific culture-bound syndrome. D and E are distracters. [E. p. 464; A. p. 189]
Cotard and Capgras delusions in a patient with bipolar disorder: “I’ll prove, I’m dead!”
Published in Psychiatry and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 2018
Mehmet Hamdi Örüm, Aysun Kalenderoğlu
Cotard is a syndrome that is characterized by nihilistic and immortality delusions, depersonalization, derealization, and suicidal thoughts. It was first described by Jules Cotard (1840–1889) in 1880, a French neurologist [1]. Reports confirm that it is seen in several psychiatric conditions, but it is strongest association has been seen to be with severe depression from the start [2]. The syndrome is encountered in middle age and older people, especially in women. When it is seen in patients who are less than 25 years of age, a bipolar disorder is often the underlying pathology [3]. It has been described in organic brain diseases and in functional psychiatric disorders such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, catatonia, postpartum depression, and is association with other syndromes: Fregoli syndrome, Koro syndrome, and Capgras syndrome [4,5].
The Prevalence of Trachomatous Trichiasis in People Aged 15 Years and Over in Six Evaluation Units of Gaoual, Labé, Dalaba and Beyla Districts, Guinea
Published in Ophthalmic Epidemiology, 2023
Midiaou M. Bah, Fatoumata Sakho, André Goepogui, Luc C. Nieba, Abdourahim Cisse, Paul Courtright, Anna J. Harte, Clara Burgert-Brucker, Cristina Jimenez, Pierre L. Lama, Michel Sagno, Ana Bakhtiari, Sarah Boyd, Anthony W. Solomon, Michaela Kelly, Fiona James, Moise S.D. Tenkiano, Emma M. Harding-Esch, Boubacar M. Dicko
The one EU with a TT prevalence above the elimination threshold, Beyla 2, in the northern section of the health district of Beyla, is located in southeast Guinea, bordering Côte d’Ivoire. While the Côte d’Ivoire districts of Odienne and Koro that are adjacent to Beyla 2 are both endemic for trachoma (2015 baseline TF > 10%), neither of these districts has had surveys reporting TT as a public health problem.23 Two out of three districts that are adjacent to Beyla 2 in Guinea demonstrate a prevalence of TT below the WHO threshold for elimination, with the exception of Kankan 3 (0.4%, as of December 2021) (Figure 1).
The future of psychiatric education
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2020
Keith Hariman, José Eduardo López Urquizú, Mariana Pinto da Costa
Rising global migration means that clinicians will likely encounter patients of a different ethnic and cultural background in their practice. With a shortage of psychiatrists in many countries, many positions may be filled by international medical graduates (Pinto da Costa, Giurgiuca, et al., 2019; Pinto da Costa et al., 2017). It is therefore important that future psychiatrists are aware of the nuanced fine details in different cultures. This not only applies to the culture-bound psychiatric morbidities such as koro in Asian culture or bouffée délirante in French, but also an understanding of the different terminologies and descriptive psychopathology experienced by people from different backgrounds. In Asian culture, for example, many patients are not well versed in describing mood symptoms, but instead experience multiple somatic symptoms, rendering the standard ICD-10 diagnostic criteria not applicable. However, consideration must be given on the method of instruction. In one study conducted in a major teaching hospital in the northeast US, the researchers noted that the ethnic background of the clinician, personal inclination, and the previous exposure or learning affect the degree of receptiveness towards teachings in cultural sensitivity (Willen, Bullon, & Good, 2010). Previous attempts at instructing cultural awareness were met with resistance from the trainees, possibly due to the time constraints and perceived time away from clinical duties. The authors also noted that the method of instruction was important as well, as didactic lectures may ‘alienate trainees or disseminate cultural caricatures that many trainees, as nuanced thinkers, will feel obligated to reject’ (Willen et al., 2010). Grounded dialogues, case-based discussions, or even experiential learning, along with communication with co-workers from different cultures, may be a more acceptable and effective way of instruction (Hansen, Braslow, & Rohrbaugh, 2018).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Anxiety
- Body Dysmorphic Disorder
- Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
- Infertility
- Paresthesia
- Spermatorrhea
- Urinary Retention
- Culture-Bound Syndrome
- Sex Organ
- Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
- Mass Psychogenic Illness