Hvordan øke kulturell kompetanse hos spesialistkandidater i psykiatri?

Abstract

In fall 2011, the specialist committee of psychiatry of the Norwegian union for doctors suggested a change in the rules of specialization in psychiatry. Among these changes were to include 9 months duration of sub specialization at a preapproved unit. Among these units, the author of this paper argues that the field of transcultural psychiatry should be given priority. The purpose of this paper is to assess what subjects a sub specialization in transcultural psychiatry for residents should encompass. In order to provide the most effective suggestions for a curriculum, relevant review articles and selected literature has been consulted by way of searching through databases available at PubMed, in addition to other methods. The results showed lacking evidence of effect of training in transcultural psychiatry on patient outcomes, but also showed increased level of empathy and of patient satisfaction. There is certain disagreements as to how transcultural psychiatry should be defined and what interventions should be given priority to in order to assess the effectiveness of training in this field. The conclusion of this paper is that important subjects are awareness of the counselor’s own cultural views and biases, culturally based patterns of action, religion and spirituality as a cultural factor, transcultural skills and usage of interpreters.