Review on Diagnostic Criteria of Neurasthenia: Suggesting Pathway of Culture-bound dieases

Abstract

Objective: Neurasthenia is a disease which consists ofincreased fatigue or bodily weakness and exhaustionplus pantalgia, dizziness, headache and other symtomsrelevant to autonomic nerve dysfunction. There areplenty of studies investigating the history of diagnosticcriteria of neurasthenia, which is influenced by diversecultural(or social) environment. The obejective of thisstudy is to provide review of the previous studys on thechanges of neurasthenia diagnoses in the context oflocal area to find meanings of these transition and improve health care for psychiatric patient.Methods: Literature review was conducted on studiesdemonstrating diagnostic criteria of neurasthenia withcultural(or social) environment. We investigated the literature reviews or observative studies which describedalteration of diagnostic criteria of neurasthenia andassessed its significance. After selecting eligible studies, the authors read the articles and summarized themeaningful contents those were significant in clinicalpractice.Results: Transformation of Chinese Classification ofMental Disorder(CCMD) integrated with internationally utilized DSM-IV or ICD-10 is controversial aboutits significance in that it had limited effect on publichealth care due to the variables of sociocultural context, but primarily differentiated neurasthenia fromother disorders. The latter one can be the directingpoint of the diagnostic criteria of other culture-bounddiseases, which is the traits of not outstanding mood(oraffect) than other neurotic disorders.Conclusion: As diagnostic criteria of neurastheniavaries, the significance of this variation is controversial, but could be the paragon of other culture-bounddiseases.

Keywords

• culture-bound disease
• diagnostic criteria
• literature study
• neurasthenia