Neurasthenia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and the Medicalization of Worry in a Vietnamese Psychiatric Hospital

Tran, Allen L.

doi:10.1111/maq.12297

Cited by 19 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Furthermore, certain items might be added to a future SSA. In particular, an item assessing the syndrome called ''neurasthenia'' (suy nhuoc thaˆn kinh; also called ''nerve weakness,'' or suy yeˆu thaˆn kinh) might be important to include, given that it was recently demonstrated to be an important syndrome in the Vietnamese context (Tran, 2017). Although we did include items assessing weakness and certain weakness syndromes, we did not include this specific item.…”

Section: Limitations and Directions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culturally Sensitive Assessment of Anxious-Depressive Distress in Vietnam: Avoiding Category Truncation

Hinton

Pollack

Weiss

et al. 2018

Transcult Psychiatry

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The present study investigated what complaints are prominent in psychologically distressed Vietnamese in Vietnam beyond standard symptoms assessed by Western diagnostic instruments for anxiety and depression. To form the initial Vietnamese Symptom and Cultural Syndrome Addendum (VN SSA), we reviewed the literature, consulted experts, and conducted focus groups. The preliminary VN SSA was then used in a general survey (N = 1004) of five provinces in Vietnam. We found that the VN SSA items were highly and significantly correlated with a measure of anxious-depressive psychopathology (a composite measure of the General Anxiety Disorder-7; Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale; and Patient Health Questionnaire-9). The VN SSA item most highly correlated to anxious-depressive psychopathology was "thinking a lot" ( r = .54), reported by 15.8% of the sample. Many other symptoms in the addendum also were prominent, such as orthostatic dizziness (i.e., dizziness upon standing up; r = .41), reported by 22.9% of the sample. By way of comparison, somatic complaints more typically assessed to profile Western anxious-depressive distress, such as palpitations, were less prominent, as evidenced by being less strongly correlated to Western psychiatric symptoms and being less frequent (e.g., palpitations: r = .31, 7.1% of the sample). Study results suggest that to avoid category truncation when profiling anxious-depressive distress among Vietnamese that items other than those in standard psychopathology measures should also be assessed.

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Section: Limitations and Directions For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culturally Sensitive Assessment of Anxious-Depressive Distress in Vietnam: Avoiding Category Truncation

Hinton

Pollack

Weiss

et al. 2018

Transcult Psychiatry

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show abstract

“…Indeed, age, gender, and class dynamics mediate the extent to which liberal models of emotive selfhood are internalized. For example, doctors and patients are differently positioned to new models of emotion, selfhood, and mental illness (Tran, 2016). Vietnamese patients draw from conflicting medical, political, and moral discourses to define themselves, and psychiatric patients often resist models of an individuated psyche implicit in biomedical diagnoses (Gammeltoft, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…5 In research conducted at the HCMC Psychiatric Hospital in 2008, most people diagnosed with MDD or GAD identified with neurasthenia (Tran, 2016). In less than a decade, the diagnosis has almost disappeared among outpatients in HCMC.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Drug adherence, medical pluralism, and psychopharmaceutical selfhood in postreform Vietnam

Tran

Tâm

Dũng

et al. 2019

Transcult Psychiatry

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This article examines drug adherence in relation to changing patterns of medical pluralism and neoliberal reforms among psychiatric patients in postreform Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We conducted 39 in-depth interviews and 21 follow-up interviews with individuals prescribed psychiatric medication on an outpatient basis in 2016 to identify patterns of nonadherence, which was operationalized as taking medications according to doctors’ prescriptions at the three-month follow-up interval. Patients adapt or reject their medication prescriptions due to (1) concerns about biomedical drugs and adverse drug reactions, (2) local concepts of psychic distress and selfhood, and (3) the social context of medicine taking. The dominant theoretical models of drug adherence focus on individual-level predictors. However, situating drug adherence in its political-economic context highlights the relationship between medicine and neoliberal modernity that underlies adherence. Examining the intersection of multiple medication regimens and political regimes, we argue that nonadherence is rooted in a complex layering of medical traditions and modernist projects of the self. The reception of new biomedical drugs in Vietnam is shaped by not only folk theories of illness but also a changing cultural politics of the self.

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“…While anxiety is properly understood as a fundamental experience among all humans (Jenkins 2004;Beesdo, Knappe, and Pine 2009;Tran 2016), it may when severe involve extreme or disabling conditions. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-V) calls attention to the need to improve access to mental health services for children since ''…many of the anxiety disorders develop in childhood and tend to persist if not treated'' (American Psychiatric Association 2013).…”

Section: Anxiety As a Fundamental Human Process Attachment And Situmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Mental Health and Adolescent Anxiety: Kin, Care and Struggle in New Mexico

Jenkins

Stone

2017

Cult Med Psychiatry

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While recent developments within the field of global mental health have illuminated the reality of serious mental health difficulties worldwide, particularly in low-income settings, research that focuses on children and adolescents remains underdeveloped. This is especially the case with respect to ethnographic studies of lived experience of adolescents diagnosed with serious mental health conditions. Drawing from an interdisciplinary study of adolescents in New Mexico who were afflicted with a broad range of disorders according to contemporary research diagnostic criteria, this article focuses on anxiety-related conditions with respect to subjective experience and social-ecological contexts of living with such conditions. We offer preliminary observations regarding the value of linking ethnographic and research diagnostic data to address questions of resilience, endurance, capacity and struggle. These observations are intended as the basis for the formulation of more precise hypotheses about adolescent anxiety, kin, and care under conditions of structural violence marked by psychological, residential, and intergenerational adversity.

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Neurasthenia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and the Medicalization of Worry in a Vietnamese Psychiatric Hospital

Cited by 19 publications

References 61 publications

Culturally Sensitive Assessment of Anxious-Depressive Distress in Vietnam: Avoiding Category Truncation

Culturally Sensitive Assessment of Anxious-Depressive Distress in Vietnam: Avoiding Category Truncation

Drug adherence, medical pluralism, and psychopharmaceutical selfhood in postreform Vietnam

Global Mental Health and Adolescent Anxiety: Kin, Care and Struggle in New Mexico

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