Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association for the classification of mental disorders using a common language and standard criteria. It is an internationally accepted manual on the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, though it may be used in conjunction with other documents. Other commonly used principal guides of psychiatry include the International Classification of Diseases, Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders, and the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual. However, not all providers rely on the DSM-5 as a guide, since the ICD's mental disorder diagnoses are used around the world, and scientific studies often measure changes in symptom scale scores rather than changes in DSM-5 criteria to determine the real-world effects of mental health interventions.
It is used by researchers, psychiatric drug regulation agencies, health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, the legal system, and policymakers. Some mental health professionals use the manual to determine and help communicate a patient's diagnosis after an evaluation. Hospitals, clinics, and insurance companies in the United States may require a DSM diagnosis for all patients with mental disorders. Health-care researchers use the DSM to categorize patients for research purposes.
The DSM evolved from systems for collecting census and psychiatric hospital statistics, as well as from a United States Army manual. Revisions since its first publication in 1952 have incrementally added to the total number of mental disorders, while removing those no longer considered to be mental disorders.
Recent editions of the DSM have received praise for standardizing psychiatric diagnosis grounded in empirical evidence, as opposed to the theory-bound nosology used in DSM-III. However, it has also generated [|controversy and criticism], including ongoing questions concerning the reliability and validity of many diagnoses; the use of arbitrary dividing lines between mental illness and "normality"; possible cultural bias; and the medicalization of human distress. The APA itself has published that the inter-rater reliability is low for many disorders in the DSM-5, including major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder.
Distinction from ICD
An alternate, widely used classification publication is the International Classification of Diseases, produced by the World Health Organization. The ICD has a broader scope than the DSM, covering overall health as well as mental health; chapter 6 of the ICD specifically covers mental, behavioral and neurodevelopmental disorders. Moreover, while the DSM is the most popular diagnostic system for mental disorders in the US, the ICD is used more widely in Europe and other parts of the world, giving it a far larger reach than the DSM. An international survey of psychiatrists in sixty-six countries compared the use of the ICD-10 and DSM-IV. It found the former was more often used for clinical diagnosis while the latter was more valued for research. This may be because the DSM tends to put more emphasis on clear diagnostic criteria, while the ICD tends to put more emphasis on clinician judgement and avoiding diagnostic criteria unless they are independently validated. That is, the ICD descriptions of psychiatric disorders tend to be more qualitative information, such as general descriptions of what various disorders tend to look like. The DSM focuses more on quantitative and operationalized criteria; e.g., to be diagnosed with X disorder, one must fulfill 5 of 9 criteria for at least 6 months.Since 1980, every code that has been listed in the DSM has been an ICD-9 code. However, DSM-5, unlike previous versions of DSM, contains both ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes. Though recent editions of the DSM and ICD have become more similar due to collaborative agreements, each one contains information absent from the other. For instance, the two manuals contain overlapping but substantially different lists of recognized culture-bound syndromes. The ICD also tends to focus more on primary-care and low and middle-income countries, as opposed to the DSM's focus on secondary psychiatric care in high-income countries.
Antecedents (1840–1949)
Census Office, AMA and ISI (1840–1911)
The initial impetus for developing a classification of mental disorders in the United States was the need to collect statistical information. The first official attempt was the 1840 census, which used a single category: "idiocy/insanity". Three years later, the American Statistical Association made an official protest to the U.S. House of Representatives, stating that "the most glaring and remarkable errors are found in the statements respecting nosology, prevalence of insanity, blindness, deafness, and dumbness, among the people of this nation", pointing out that, in many towns, African Americans were all marked as insane, and calling the statistics essentially useless.The Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane was formed in 1844.
In 1860, during the international statistical congress held in London, Florence Nightingale made a proposal that was to result in the development of the first international model of systematic collection of hospital data.
In 1872, the American Medical Association published its Nomenclature of Diseases, which included various "Disorders of the Intellect". However, its use was short-lived.
Edward Jarvis and later Francis Amasa Walker helped expand the census, from two volumes in 1870 to twenty-five volumes in 1880.
In 1888, the Census Office published Frederick H. Wines' 582-page volume called Report on the Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent Classes of the Population of the United States, As Returned at the Tenth Census . Wines used seven categories of mental illness, which were also adopted by the Superintendents: dementia, dipsomania, epilepsy, mania, melancholia, monomania, and paresis.
In 1892, the Superintendents' Association expanded its membership to include other mental health workers, and renamed to the American Medico-Psychological Association.
In 1893, a French physician, Jacques Bertillon, introduced the Bertillon Classification of Causes of Death at a congress of the International Statistical Institute in Chicago.. A number of countries adopted the ISI's system. In 1898, the American Public Health Association recommended that United States registrars also adopt the system.
In 1900, an ISI conference in Paris reformed the Bertillion Classification, and created the International List of Causes of Death ''.'' Another conference would be held every ten years, and a new edition of the ILCD would be released. Five were ultimately issued. Non-fatal conditions were not included.
In 1903, New York's Bellevue Hospital published "The Bellevue Hospital nomenclature of diseases and conditions", which included a section on "Diseases of the Mind". Revisions were released in 1909 and 1911. It was produced with the assistance of the AMA and Bureau of the Census.
APA Statistical Manual (1917) and AMA Standard (1933)
In 1917, together with the National Commission on Mental Hygiene, the American Medico-Psychological Association developed a new guide for mental hospitals called the Statistical Manual for the Use of Institutions for the Insane. This guide included twenty-two diagnoses. It would be revised several times by the Association, and by the tenth edition in 1942, was titled Statistical Manual for the Use of Hospitals of Mental Diseases.In 1921, the AMPA became the present American Psychiatric Association.
The first edition of the DSM notes in its foreword: "In the late twenties, each large teaching center employed a system of its own origination, no one of which met more than the immediate needs of the local institution."
In 1933, the AMA's general medical guide the Standard Classified Nomenclature of Disease,,'' was released. Along with the New York Academy of Medicine, the APA provided the psychiatric nomenclature subsection. It became well adopted in the US within two years. A major revision of the Statistical Manual was made in 1934, to bring it in line with the new Standard. A number of revisions of the Standard were produced, with the last in 1961.
Medical 203 (1945)
saw the large-scale involvement of U.S. psychiatrists in the selection, processing, assessment, and treatment of soldiers. This moved the focus away from mental institutions and traditional clinical perspectives. The U.S. armed forces initially used the Standard, but found it lacked appropriate categories for many common conditions that troubled troops. The United States Navy made some minor revisions but "the Army established a much more sweeping revision, abandoning the basic outline of the Standard and attempting to express present-day concepts of mental disturbance."Under the direction of James Forrestal, a committee headed by psychiatrist Brigadier General William C. Menninger, with the assistance of the Mental Hospital Service, developed a new classification scheme in 1944 and 1945.
Issued in War Department Technical Bulletin, Medical, 203 ; Nomenclature and Method of Recording Diagnoses was released shortly after the war in October 1945 under the auspices of the Office of the Surgeon General. It was reprinted in the Journal of Clinical Psychology for civilian use in July 1946 with the new title Nomenclature of Psychiatric Disorders and Reactions. This system came to be known as "Medical 203".
This nomenclature eventually was adopted by all the armed forces, and "assorted modifications of the Armed Forces nomenclature introduced into many clinics and hospitals by psychiatrists returning from military duty." The Veterans Administration also adopted a slightly modified version of the standard in 1947.
The further developed Joint Armed Forces Nomenclature and Method of Recording Psychiatric Conditions was released in 1949.