Une illustration clinique de l’apport de la transculturalité en psychiatrie

The recurring failure to accurately account for local realities, by semiology built on the universalist model of evidence-based medicine has made it necessary to theorize culture-bound syndrome. The case of Mrs. S. illustrates how, despite multiple hospitalizations and management, a first symptomatology of psychotic appearance has eclipsed, for years, a recurrent depressive disorder. These diagnostic errors involve people because of their non-Western origins, and lead to an overdiagnostic of schizophrenia. It seems urgent to us to promote awareness of this social inequity of health by sensitizing French psychiatric interns to cross-cultural issues.