Review Article
Year: 2017 | Month: September | Volume: 2 | Issue: 3 | Pages: 15-23
Approach to the Chinese Patient
Domingo Ly-Pen1,2
1 Emergency Department, Hospital Universitario “Ramón y Cajal”,
Ctra. de Colmenar Viejo km. 9,100, Madrid 28034, Spain.
2 Emergency Department, Royal Glamorgan Hospital, Ynysmaerdy. Llantrisant, CF72 8XR. Wales, UK.
ABSTRACT
Background: The number of Chinese people is increasing every year all over the world. Chinese ethnicity is the sixth most common ethnic group in the UK. Even Chinese patients are not the most frequently attended in most Western countries, they might be one of the groups with the most difficulties to communicate with, mainly because of the extreme differences in culture and language.
Objective: The main objective of this review article is to give all doctors working in Western countries (above all family physicians / general practitioners), a brief introduction about main customs and behavior of Chinese patients. In this way, they can get a realistic idea of Chinese patients´ thinking and ideas about diseases. This should be very helpful in their clinical approach.
Medical aspects and clinical interview: In this review article, we explain (among others) Chinese´s sociocultural aspects, their general medical problems and ideas about disease and their clinical peculiarities of clinical interview.
Most frequent diseases: At the end of the article, a practical review of the literature about the most frequent diseases in Chinese ethnicity, with their clinical implications.
Key words: Chinese Ethnicity, Frequent Diseases.