The Relevance of Hispanic Culture to the Treatment of a Patient with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Cahill, et al.(1) discussed the importance of psychotherapy and psychotropic medications in the prevention and treatment of acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the September, 2005, issue of Psychiatry. In this article, we will specifically explore PTSD in the Hispanic population and present a composite case to demonstrate several clinical issues to consider when treating this population. This topic is timely and highly relevant to the practice of psychiatry as the Latino population continues to grow at a pace that far exceeds the capability of both current Latino/bilingual psychiatrists and the number of Latinos in the mental health provider pipeline. Given this great disparity, all psychiatrists need to be equipped with knowledge that will enable them to provide culturally sensitive care(2) that will result in better Hispanic patient outcomes.