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Download or read book TRANSCULTURAL PSYCHIATRY - A REFLECTION ON CLINICAL PRACTICE written by Paulo Horta Carreira and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Objectives:Point the rising probability of contact with foreign patients in psychiatry services and raise awareness to the need of transcultural psychiatry knowledge in the contemporary scene, namely in multicultural Portugal.Background:Transcultural psychiatry deals with the cultural context of mental disorders and the challenges of addressing ethnic diversity in psychiatry. Nowadays, Portugal becomes increasingly a multicultural country, posing important difficulties to mental health workers that have to overcome linguistic and customs barriers, be familiar with different cultural contexts and diverse morbid expressions, and deal with frail family and social support.Materials and Methods:Reflection upon three patients with different cultural backgrounds accompanied in our services and literature review through a bibliographic research in Pubmed database.Results and Conclusions:As a resident beginning my second year of psychiatric internship, dealing with patients with diverse cultural background of myself poses a challenge to my capability of understanding their struggles and morbid processes, namely what I should consider ordinary or pathological in their setting, and what should be expected as normal concerning their personal experience, so different from my own. To this reflection I recall three patients, one African woman and two South American women, that, besides linguistic barriers, set great difficulties concerning their family and social orientation after inpatient discharge and even to ensure their adherence to psychiatric care. Mental health professionals face an increasingly challenge with multicultural populations, being required an adaptation from psychiatry care to these vulnerable individuals, from mental health matters to social support and integration.