GLOBAL PSYCHIATRY — Vol 3 | Issue 1 | 2020 1 © 2019 ?????. This is an open access article licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/). INTRODUCTION Cultural variations Culture is sometimes called the personality of a society. There are many factors that collectively contribute towards the development and determination of culture in a society (Durkheim et al., 1981). The perceptions, understandings, attitudes, behaviours and practices of the individuals vary across cultures (Durkheim et al., 1981). For example, every family, every institution or every country may vary in their cultural norms. We regularly come across terms as Western culture, Eastern culture, American culture and so on that signify various practices, attitudes, behaviours or understandings exhibited by the members of these societies. Some cultural norms significantly vary across societies, for example, an eating delicacy in one culture may be considered a forbidden item in another, consumption of which may be a punishable offence (Squires et al. 2011). Cultural diversity exists in understanding mental health and related issues, across the world (Gopalkrishnan et al., 2018). Salman Shafq 1, * Perceptions of Pakistani community towards their mental health problems: a systematic review Abstract Objectives: The objective of this research is to explore how Pakistani community perceive their mental health problems by systema- tically reviewing the scientific literature published on major databases. The findings expectedly will be useful for general public, for clinicians and for the researchers. Methods: The methodology of this systematic literature search involved identifying and critically appraising studies that attempted to explore how Pakistani community perceives and understands its mental health problems. We carried out literature search on some major databases including PubMed, Cochrane database of systematic reviews and Google Scholar. We followed selection criteria where researchers aimed to find perceptions and understandings of Pakistani participants regarding their mental health by adopting scientific methodologies. The extraction of data was carried out after reading the selected papers and organising the findings under specific categories, in the form of a table. Data analysis was based on the information gathered from these studies. Results: The results suggest that Pakistani community exhibits negligible to little understanding regarding their psychological expe- riences and emotional processes as separate identifiable entities. Nonetheless, multiple parallel sociocultural concepts such as reli- gion or faith driven practices and mythical or supernatural understandings are highlighted by this research. These are accepted and practiced in order to address mental health problems. Conclusion: It appears that Pakistani community has limited understanding and scarce vocabulary to describe their inner psycholo- gical and emotional experiences. However, in order to address the mental health issues, the community exhibits a variety of respon- ses and reactions that are driven from several unique social, cultural and religious factors. Whether these are general perceptions or causations or protective factors towards illness or possible treatment options, they all are approached and addressed with some unique understandings and perceptions that are specific to this community. Keywords Pakistani, mental health, perceptions, views, attitudes, behaviours, explanatory model, mental illness 1 Consultant General Adult Psychiatrist for Psycho-Oncology services at Shaukat Khanam Memorial Trust and Research Centre, Lahore, Pakistan *email: relaxedmind@outlook.com DOI: 10.2478/gp-2020-0001 Received: 25 April 2019; Accepted: 5 December 2019 Unauthentifiziert | Heruntergeladen 16.02.20 05:18 UTC