Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T16:55:03.774Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cross-Cultural Studies and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Dan J. Stein  and
Judith L. Rapoport
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Despite increased attention to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in recent years, relatively little work has focused on cross-cultural issues. This paper reports on current thinking in this area, and considers ways of advancing the field.

An important theoretical distinction in medical anthropology is that between “disease” and “illness.” This distinction was employed to help review past cross-cultural studies of OCD and to consider further questions for empirical research. Several studies indicate that the medical disease of OCD is found in a range of cultures, with no apparent need for modification of diagnostic criteria. However, there is almost no work on how OCD as an illness—its subjective perception and experience—varies across cultures. Given the possibility that such variations may influence course and outcome, it is important to attend to them in future work. Further research on OCD needs to address unanswered questions about the epidemiology of the disease and to focus on neglected questions about variations in the subjective illness experience. Cross-cultural variations in illness experience are likely to lead to differences in the path of presentation, and may even result in variations in course and outcome.

Type
Feature Articles
Information
CNS Spectrums , Volume 1 , Issue 1: Special Academic Supplement: 2nd International OCD Conference , September 1996 , pp. 42 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Zohar, J, Insel, TR. Obsessive-compulsive disorder: psychobiological approaches to diagnosis, treatment, and pathophysiology. Biol Psychiatry. 1987;22:667–687.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
2. Insel, TR. Toward a neuroanatomy of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1992;49:739–744.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Allen, AJ, Leonard, HL, Swedo, SE. Case study: a new infection-triggered, autoimmune subtype of pediatric OGD and Tourette's syndrome. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 1995;34:307–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4. Swedo, SE. Sydenham's chorea: a model for childhood autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders. JAMA. 1994;272:1788–1791.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Baxter, LR, Schwartz, JM, Bergman, KS, et al. Caudate glucose metabolic rate changes with both drug and behavior therapy for OCD. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1992;49:681–689.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Greenberg, D, Witztum, E. Cultural aspects of obsessive compulsive disorder. In: Hollander, E, Zohar, J, Marazzati, , Olivier, B, eds. Current Insights in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons; 1994.Google Scholar
7. Kleinman, A. Rethinking Psychiatry: From Cultural Category to Personal Experience. New York: Free Press; 1988.Google Scholar
8. Kleinman, A. Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland Between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry. Los Angeles: University of California Press; 1980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
9. Good, BJ, Good, MD. Towards a meaning-centred analysis of popular illness categories: ‘fright-illness’ and ‘heart distress’ in Iran. In: Marsella, AJ, White, GM eds. Cultural Conceptions of Mental Health and Therapy. Dordrech, Germany: Reidel; 1982.Google Scholar
10. Kleinman, A. Depression, somatisation, and the new ‘cross-cultural psychiatry’. Soc Sci Med. 1977;11:3–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
11. Littlewood, R: From categories to contexts: a decade of the ‘new cross-cultural psychiatry’. Br J Psychiatry. 1990;156:308–327.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
12. Good, BJ, Kleinman, AM. Culture and anxiety: cross-cultural evidence for the patterning of anxiety disorders: In: Tuma, AH, Maser, JD, eds. Anxiety and the Anxiety Disorders. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; 1985.Google Scholar
13. Stein, DJ, Stone, MH, eds. Essential Papers on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders. New York: University Press. In press.Google Scholar
14. Karno, M, Golding, JM, Sorenson, SB, et al. The epidemiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder in five US communities. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1988;45:1094–1099.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
15. Weissman, MM, Bland, RC, Canino, GJ, et al. The cross national epidemiology of obsessive compulsive disorder. J Clin Psychiatry. 1994;55S:5–10.Google Scholar
16. Gangdev, PS, Stein, DJ, Ruzibiza, JB: Obsessive-compulsive disorder in African South Africans: a case series. SubmittedGoogle Scholar
17. Okasha, A, Saad, A, Khalil, AH, Seif El Dawla, A, Yehia, N: Phenomenology of obsessive-compulsive disorder: a transcultural study. Compr Psychiatry. 1994;35:191–197.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
18. Greenberg, D, Witztum, E. The influence of cultural factors on obsessive-compulsive disorder: religious symptoms in a religious society. Isr J Psychiatry Relat Sci. 1994;31:211–220.Google Scholar
19. Stein, DJ. Cross-cultural psychiatry and the DSM-IV. Compr Psychiatry. 1993;34:322–329.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
20. Franzblau, SH, Kanadanian, M, Rettig, E. Critique of reductionistic models of obsessive-compulsive disorder: toward a new explanatory paradigm. Soc Sci Med. 1995;41:99–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
21. Freud, S. Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices. Standard ed. New York: W.W. Norton; 1907;9:115–128.Google Scholar
22. Shome, S, Bhatia, MS, Gautam, RK. Culture-bound trichotillomania. Am J Psychiatry. 1993;150:674.Google ScholarPubMed
23. Esman, AH. Psychoanalysis and general psychiatry: obsessive-compulsive disorder as paradigm. J Am Psychoanal Assoc. 1989;37:319–336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
24. Hollander, E, Stein, DJ, Broatch, J, Himelein, C, Rowland, C. A pharmacoeconomic and quality of life study of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American College of Neuropharmacology; 1995; Puerto Rico.Google Scholar
25. Carothers, J. The African Mind in Health and Disease. Geneva: World Health Organization; 1953.Google Scholar
26. Lambo, TA. Malignant anxiety: a syndrome associated with criminal conduct in Africans. J Ment Sci. 1962;108:256–264.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
27. Hollander, E, Cohen, LJ. Obsessive-compulsive disorder. In: Friedman, S, ed. Anxiety Disorders in African Americans. New York: Springer; 1994.Google Scholar
28. Elsarrag, ME. Psychiatry in the Northern Sudan: a study in comparative psychiatry. Br J Psychiatry. 1968;114:945–948.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
29. German, GA. Aspects of clinical psychiatry in sub-Saharan Africa. Br J Psychiatry. 1972;121:461–479.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
30. Lin, K-M. Psychopharmacology and Psychobiology of Ethnicity. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.Google Scholar