[Psychiatric diagnostic classification in transcultural epidemiologic studies].

The utility of transcultural psychiatric epidemiology research is discussed as well as the methodological difficulties inherent in this type of investigation. The comparison across different cultures of the prevalence and incidence of mental illness in population studies can be used to obtain a better understanding of the risk and etiological factors involved in the development of specific psychiatric disorders. Nevertheless, most population studies have been carried out in developing countries mostly due to the complexity and high cost of these studies. As a consequence, a gap in psychiatric knowledge is created between the developed and developing countries resulting in the false notion that many of the psychiatric disorders observed in developed countries are universal to all human beings. The cross-cultural validity of certain psychiatric disorders based on the American Psychiatric Nosology (DSM III) are discussed. The article discusses the methodological difficulties which arise from the need of maintaining methods and criteria uniform in cross-cultural studies in order to allow comparisons, as well as the need of incorporating into the methodology the cultural differences existent in the manifestation or definition of the specific psychiatric disorders studied. Various possible methodologies are discussed which address this dilemma, such as the combination of empirical and ethnographic approaches and the cross-cultural comparison of empirically defined syndromes.