ASIAN NON-ASIAN TRANSCULTURAL TRICYCLIC ANTIDEPRESSANT PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY - A REVIEW

1. Transcultural psychopharmacology is a discipline that seeks to dete rmine the relative importance of society, culture, environment, geneti cs, and biophysiology on the prescribing and metabolism of, and respon se to psychotherapeutic medications. 2. Studies and surveys comparing psychotropic medication use in Asian and non-Asian populations suggest that differences may exist in drug dosage requirements, plasma drug c oncentrations corresponding to therapeutic and toxic effects, and the incidence and severity of adverse drug reactions. 3. This paper review s and critiques the published controlled studies on Asian / non-Asian transcultural tricyclic antidepressant psychopharmacology, provides gu idelines for the use of psychotropic medications in Asian populations, and offers suggestions for future transcultural studies. 4. Anecdotal reports suggest that differences exist between Asian and non-Asian po pulations in the pharmacokinetics of tricyclic antidepressants. Contro lled studies have not consistently supported this view. 5. Studies wit h larger sample sizes and more rigorous controls are needed to determi ne if such differences do, in fact, exist.