Pattern of anxiety in a cross-cultural hospital population.

Abstract

In a study of the frequencies of hospital diagnoses of anxiety or related conditions and the Catego syndromes and diagnoses of anxiety and related conditions it was found that with the exception of the syndrome of tension, there were no overall cultural differences in the distribution of these syndromes across the nine cultural groups studied. However, the occurrence of these syndromes was barely reflected in the hospital diagnoses of anxiety and related conditions, even less so in the Catego diagnoses where one case of hysteria was found in the African group. All the symptoms of anxiety and related conditions are found in all the cultural groups notwithstanding other symptoms which may be culturally determined. It is argued that, at least in this hospital-based study, most or all of these symptoms were subordinate to other more predominant clinical or Catego diagnoses