Editorial: Cross-Cultural Assessment: Concepts, Methods, and Application.

Abstract

Our field has increasingly recognized the importance of culture in the process of clinical care of children, youth, and their families. This includes accounting for the role of cultural and linguistic differences in clinical assessment. The AACAP Practice Parameter for Cultural Competence in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Practice recommends in Principle 4 that clinicians "should apply knowledge of cultural differences in developmental progression, idiomatic expressions of distress, or symptomatic presentation for different disorders to the clinical formulation and diagnosis."^1(p1105) In the DSM-5-TR outline for Cultural Formulation, the American Psychiatric Association² recommends that clinicians consider the patient's cultural conceptualization of illness (ie, the influence of cultural beliefs on experience, expression of symptoms, including cultural syndromes and idioms of distress, explanatory models of illness, emotional norms, perceived severity, meaning of distressing experiences, and methods of coping). These factors need to be addressed not only in clinical assessment, but also in the construction, selection, and application of systematic assessment tools. These factors are additionally important in any cross-national or cross-cultural study of psychopathology. However, they are rarely adequately addressed in most large-scale studies of psychopathology or treatment outcome.