The Third National Conference on
Quality Health Care for Culturally Diverse Populations:
Advancing Effective Health Care through Systems Development, Data, and Measurement

October 2 - 4, 2002, Chicago, IL
Westin Chicago River North Hotel

Workshop B: Cultural assessment in clinical psychiatry and other health fields

1. Cultural assessment in clinical psychiatry and other health fields is essential as part of good clinical care. Trainees and residency training programs must meet ACGME requirements to include sociocultural issues as part of the integrative case formulation. Staff are being encouraged to include cultural assessment in their case formulations. The DSM-IV Outline for Cultural Formulation (pages 843-844) provides a concise clinical tool for cultural assessment that is applicable to clinical care in other health fields. It consists of 5 sections:
1. Cultural Identity
2. Cultural Expressions and Explanations of Illness
3. Cultural Stressors and Supports
4. Cultural Elements of the Clinician-Patient Relationship
5. Overall Cultural Assessment for Differential Diagnosis and Treatment Planning.
   
   

This workshop will teach participants about the use of the Outline through the following methods:


1. The Culture of Emotions" videotape will be shown. It is an introductory overview of the Outline. After a short prologue, the five sections are described; after each section, there are short commentaries from a total of about 15 cultural psychiatry experts. (58 minutes)
2. Discussion of the Outline as described on the videotape. This discussion will be integrated after each of the five sections of the tape. (40 minutes)
3. Review of two published cases which present the standard clinical history and then demonstrate the use of the Outline. (60 minutes)
4. General discussion about application to supervision and case conferences. (15 minutes)
   
   

References:


1. Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry. Cultural Assessment in Clinical Psychiatry. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2002.
2. Koskoff, H. "The Culture of Emotions" videotape. Boston: Fanlight Productions, 2002.


2. The DSM-IV Outline for Cultural Formulation has adopted for use by the journal Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry for its clinical case reports. Some psychiatry residency programs have begun to utilize it.



3. Because of its positioning in the DSM-IV in Appendix I, many people are not aware of the Outline. Greater awareness through publications and this videotape has and will help overcome this situation.



4. Teaching tools such as the GAP book and the videotape will ensure greater understanding of the Outline.

Francis G. Lu, MD, is Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and the Director of the Cultural Competence and Diversity Program, Department of Psychiatry at San Francisco General Hospital, where he has worked for 25 years. Dr. Lu has contributed to the areas of cultural psychiatry, psychiatric education, film and the transpersonal, and the interface of psychiatry and religion/spirituality through his presentations and more than 40 publications. He has participated on expert panels/advisory committees for cultural competence projects sponsored by the Office of the Surgeon General, DHHS Office of Minority Health, SAMHSA Center for Mental Health Services, the American Psychiatric Association, the California Endowment and the Templeton Foundation. The American Psychiatric Association awarded him the 2001 Kun-Po Soo Award for his work in integrating Asian issues into psychiatry; in 2002, he received a Special Presidential Commendation for his work in cross-cultural psychiatry.

Francis G. Lu, MD
Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, UCSF Department of Psychiatry
San Francisco General Hospital
1001 Potrero Avenue, Suite 7M8
San Francisco, CA 94110
Phone: 415-206-8984
Fax: 415-206-8942
E-mail: Francis.Lu@sfdph.org

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