[Symposium 37] Cultural Formulation Interview Symposium 1

[SY-37] Cultural Formulation Interview Symposium 1

Lukas Claus⁴, Laurence J. Kirmayer³, Roberto Lewis-Fernández^1,2, Hans Rohlof⁵ (1.Columbia University(United States of America), 2.New York State Psychiatric Institute(United States of America), 3.McGill University(Canada), 4.University of Antwerp(Belgium), 5.Private Practice Rohlof(Netherlands))

Mental health assessment and treatment planning need to be adapted to the cultural and social diversity of people accessing care. If cultural factors are not properly assessed, patients may be misdiagnosed or the severity of their condition may be misjudged. The lack of clinicians’ cultural sensitivity can create communication barriers leading to the breakdown of patients’ trust in the therapeutic process and hesitancy to communicate important information. Likewise, valid treatment planning and implementation requires information on patients’ expectation of care and barriers to service use. The introduction of the Cultural Formulation Interview (CFI) in DSM-5 in 2013 was a breakthrough for improving cultural sensitivity in mental health care. The CFI is an interview protocol that helps obtain culture-relevant information and improve rapport in psychiatric assessment based on a person-centered, non-stereotyping approach. This symposium will present up-to-date research on the uses of the CFI, including the performance of several of its components; its use with specific subgroups, e.g., asylum seekers; strategies to complement the CFI with systematic evaluation of social determinants of health; and ways to incorporate the information obtained from the CFI into an ecologically valid cultural formulation, diagnostic assessment, and treatment plan. Contributors will discuss research questions, innovative clinical applications, and challenges in training and implementation.