On the way to DSM-V

Excerpt

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is one of the two standard classification systems of mental disorders used by mental health professionals. DSM originated in 1952 (DSM-I); the other widely used system—the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD)—for the first time included a section on mental disorders in 1949 (ICD-6). Both the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are currently working on revisions of the respective classification systems. DSM-V¹ (http://​www.​dsm5.​org) and ICD-11 (http://​www.​who.​int/​classifications/​icd/​ICDRevision) are scheduled for publication in May 2013 and in 2015, respectively. They will replace DSM-IV and ICD-10 which were introduced in 1994 (the “Text Revision” of DSM-IV was published in 2000) and 1992. In the United States, DSM is used for both clinical and research purposes; outside the USA, clinically orientated research is frequently based on DSM, one of the major reasons being that many research journals require studies to be based on the DSM classification. DSM not only influences how mental health specialists diagnose and treat their patients but also sways how US insurance companies decide which disorders to cover, how pharmaceutical companies design clinical trials and how funding agencies decide which research to fund [1]. …