Culture and mental disorders

Abstract

Objectives

Show with a case report how psychiatric pathology may face differential diagnosis problems when sociocultural aspects are involved.

Methods and materials

Seventy-three year old man, born in Colombia. During the last two months, he had come many times to the emergency service due to behavioural changes. He does not have previous psychiatric history. His daughter refers that one of the patient's sisters has been diagnosed of “mystical madness”. The previous days he abandoned his medical treatment saying that he “gets in touch with his wife and that he wants to meet her”. Since his wife's dead, he had presented an excessively adapted behaviour, without grief symptoms. The first hospitalization day he said we wanted to get married with one of his daughters, with a sexual content speech, being able to get emotional when he spoke about his dead wife. Now the patient is under frequent reviews, and it is thought the differential diagnosis of depression with psychotic symptoms, due to the lack of symptoms remission.

Conclusion

Whenever we face different psychiatric diagnosis we don’t keep in mind some sociocultural factors, which could be masked and raise different doubts. It is important to keep in mind that each country or ethnical have their own cultural habits which are going to deeply influence patient's personality.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.