Ethno-psychopharmacology

How we judge in what way, with what potential side-effects, our patients respond to medications designed to help them recover from their psychiatric disorders is informed by experience, scientific knowledge and guesswork. The rapid movement of populations around the world, usually voluntary but sometimes driven by other motives or exigencies, means that many psychiatrists are increasingly frequently faced with providing treatment for individuals who come from cultures about which they know little. Determining the characteristics of the illness itself can prove challenging in such circumstances, as this can be influenced by cultural differences in, for example, the degree of somatisation of symptoms. In this issue, we link three papers, each of which provides a different viewpoint on the way in which the effectiveness of pharmacological treatment for psychiatric problems could be influenced by the ethnic background of the patient.