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

OBJECTIVE: Neurasthenia is a disease which consists of increased fatigue or bodily weakness and exhaustion plus pantalgia, dizziness, headache and other symtoms relevant to autonomic nerve dysfunction. There are plenty of studies investigating the history of diagnostic criteria of neurasthenia, which is influenced by diverse cultural(or social) environment. The obejective of this study is to provide review of the previous studys on the changes of neurasthenia diagnoses in the context of local area to find meanings of these transition and improve health care for psychiatric patient. METHODS: Literature review was conducted on studies demonstrating diagnostic criteria of neurasthenia with cultural(or social) environment. We investigated the literature reviews or observative studies which described alteration of diagnostic criteria of neurasthenia and assessed its significance. After selecting eligible studies, the authors read the articles and summarized the meaningful contents those were significant in clinical practice. RESULTS: Transformation of Chinese Classification of Mental Disorder(CCMD) integrated with internationally utilized DSM-IV or ICD-10 is controversial about its significance in that it had limited effect on public health care due to the variables of sociocultural context, but primarily differentiated neurasthenia from other disorders. The latter one can be the directing point of the diagnostic criteria of other culture-bound diseases, which is the traits of not outstanding mood(or affect) than other neurotic disorders. CONCLUSION: As diagnostic criteria of neurasthenia varies, the significance of this variation is controversial, but could be the paragon of other culture-bound diseases.