A qualitative analysis of the documentation of DSM-5 Cultural Formulation Interviews with non-native speaking patients in a Swedish mental health care setting

Cultural variety in expressed symptom presentations of mental health problems creates difficulties in transcultural diagnostic assessments. This emphasizes the need of culturally sensitive diagnostic tools like the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI). Although the CFI is being implemented worldwide...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in psychiatry 2024, Vol.15, p.1298920-1298920
Main Authors: Wallin, Malin Idar, DeMarinis, Valerie, Nevonen, Lauri, Bäärnhielm, Sofie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
clinical assessment
cultural formulation
cultural identity
cultural psychiatry
ethnicity and mental health
Psychiatry
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Summary:Cultural variety in expressed symptom presentations of mental health problems creates difficulties in transcultural diagnostic assessments. This emphasizes the need of culturally sensitive diagnostic tools like the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI). Although the CFI is being implemented worldwide there is a lack of studies analyzing what kind of information it provides when used with new patients in routine psychiatric assessments, and how CFI information contributes to diagnostic evaluations. This study aimed to find out what information the CFI questions revealed when used with non-native Swedish speaking patients. We also wanted to understand how the CFI may facilitate identification of psychiatric diagnoses among these patients. The CFI was used as part of a routine clinical psychiatric assessment in an outpatient clinic in Sweden. Interpreters were used in the consultations when needed. A qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze the documented CFI answers from non-native speaking patients. We found that the CFI information contained contextualized descriptions of dysfunction and current life conditions, as well as expressions of emotions, often described along with somatic terms. Our results indicate that the narrative approach of the CFI, giving contextualized information about distress and functioning, can facilitate clinicians' identification of psychiatric symptoms when language, psychiatric terms and understandings are not shared between patient and clinician.
ISSN:1664-0640
1664-0640
DOI:10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1298920