The role of culture in the dimensions of anxiety disorders based on DSM-5

Social and cultural context have a direct impact not only on the signs and symptoms of mental disorders, but also on their emergence and development. Anxiety disorders are one of the most common psychiatric disorders which largely affected by race, ethnicity and cultural factors. With regard to the growing view of the DSM toward culture, there are evidences of the effects of culture and the socio-cultural view on psychopathology in each revision of the DSM. In the present article, which is a review article, cultural differences in anxiety disorders have been discussed. In this regard, two components of cultural factors have been investigated: (1) ethnopsychology/ ethnophysiology factors that refer to the beliefs of each cultural group toward the body functions; and (2) contextual factors which might be responsible for cultural differences in experiencing of anxiety. In this regard, this research includes: a discussion on the role of stigma in anxiety disorders; an evaluation of the reliability and diagnostic accuracy of panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder from the perspective of cross-cultural researches; a discussion on the changes in DSM-5 regarding cultural issues in anxiety disorders, and also on the researches conducted in Iran. Finally, it can be concluded that by improving the existing classification system, DSM diagnostic sensitivity can be increased to the intra-cultural anxiety disorders – a problem that requires more cross-cultural researches on anxiety disorders.