Culturally Informed Approaches to Evaluations

Because culture has an important role in how various symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and cognitive concerns are expressed and manifested, it is important to integrate relevant cultural factors in the evaluation.

“It is important to integrate relevant cultural factors in the evaluation”

Recommendations for addressing cultural factors include (Vila-Castelar, 2022):

Consider cultural factors during clinical diagnostic evaluations.

Clinicians should follow proposed cultural guidelines, standards, and clinical frameworks such as the ECLECTIC framework for conducting a neuropsychological evaluation with a culturally diverse client (Fujii, 2018).
Cultural factors, including cultural values and identity, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, language, educational attainment, occupational history, and immigration history, should be integrated into clinical evaluations.

Consideration of cultural and linguistic factors, including acculturation, education, literacy, and bilingualism, can facilitate selection of cognitive measures and norms, assessment of functional abilities, and clinical case conceptualization and diagnosis.
Following the evaluation, culturally relevant and appropriate recommendations should be provided.

Practice Pearl | Culturally Informed Evaluations

Joyce F. Fogel, MD FACP AGSF, Clinical Professor of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Addressing language barriers is an important part of culturally informed evaluations. Providing a certified interpreter in person or through audio or video plays an important role in ensuring that the assessment is conducted in a comprehensive, unbiased, and accurate manner and respecting the patient's language preference. Family members or caregivers may offer to provide translation; however, issues like emotional closeness or biases may filter or sway a difficult conversation.

Evaluate | Approaches to Implement