A growing body of research has begun to highlight differences in the way racial as well as ethnic groupsto psychiatric medication.
It has been pointed that there are "dramatic cross-ethnic as well as cross-national variations in a dosing practices and side-effect profiles in response to practically any a collection of matters sharing a common assigns of psychotropics."
The differential response of many ethnic minorities topsychiatric medications raises important concerns for both research and practice.
Include Ethnic Groups. nearly studies of psychiatric medications have white male subjects. Because there is often a greater difference within racial and ethnic groups than between them, researchers must betheyprototypical representatives of these groups, or usage a larger random sample.
Further, because broad racial and ethnic groups make-up many different subgroups. For example, in North American research it may non be enough to characterize individuals as Asian, Hispanic, Native American, or African American. Even within the same ethnic group, there are no reliable measures to instituting important cultural differences.
"Start Low and Go Slow." Individuals who receive a higher dose of psychiatric medication than needed may discontinue treatment because of side effects, or they may determining toxic levels that lead to serious complications. A fair approach to prescribing medication to all psychiatric patient, regardless of types or culture, is to "start low and go slow".
Someday there may be a simple blood test to predict how an individual willto a specific a collection of matters sharing a common attribute of drugs; research in these fields fall in the domain of pharmacogenomics and pharmacometabolomics.