Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM)

Abstract

Title: Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5) Author: American Psychiatric Association Editors of Croatian Edition: Vlado Jukic, Goran Arbanas ISBN: 978-953-191-787-2 Publisher: Naklada Slap, Jastrebarsko, Croatia Number of pages: 936Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders is a national classification, but since its third edition it became a worldwide used manual. [1] It has been published by the American Psychiatric Association and two years ago the fifth edition was released. [2] Croatian was among the first languages this book was translated to. [3] DSM-5 was translated by psychiatrists and psychologists, mainly from the University hospital Vrapce and published by the Naklada Slap publisher.DSM has always been more publicly debated than the other main classification - the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). [4] The same happened with this fifth edition. Even before it was released, numerous individuals, organizations, groups and associations were publicly speaking about the classification, new diagnostic entities and changing criteria. [5]Although there is a tendency of authors of both DSM and ICD to synchronize these two classifications and to make them more harmonized with each new edition, there are several differences among them. While ICD covers all the diseases, disorders and reasons for making a contact with the health system, DSM covers only mental disorders. Other disorders (medical conditions, as they are named in DSM-5) are not included, except in situations when they lead to a development of a mental disorder. The other main difference is that DSM is more operational zed, and gives criteria for each of the disorders, listing how many criteria have to be met to make a diagnosis of a particular disorder, and what excluding criteria are.Due to the fact that it is used all around the globe and since it has become the most used manual, it is sometimes said that DSM is a psychiatric Bible. [6]Some critics of DSM say that it stigmatizes people and that in each edition it includes more diagnostic entities. It is true that in each edition of DSM there are more disorders listed, but this is due to the fact that medicine is a developing area and new insights are made every year, so some disorders are separated into different subtypes or subgroups and different new diagnoses, giving the impression more behaviour are being pathologized. The intention of the authors was to make more homogenous groups. But, the truth is that, compared with ICD, it is more difficult to get a diagnosis in DSM, than in ICD, with the same clinical presentation. [7] DSM requires functional impairment or distress to pathologize behaviour, while in ICD this criterion is not present in every case.During the process of developing DSM-5 there was an open public discussion. [2] For over a year any person was able to participate in the discussion about future criteria, inclusion or exclusion of diagnostic entities from DSM. More than 21000 letters was sent to the authors. This was the unprecedented way of developing a classification that ICD now tries to follow in preparation of its 11th edition.As a direct consequence of such an open and wide discussion, some new disorders were included (e.g. hoarding disorder), some were excluded even though they were included during the proposal period (e.g. hypersexual disorders), some were heavily debated (e.g. narcissistic personality disorder). [8-10]As previously mentioned, DSM and ICD systems try to harmonize more. There were more non-American authors included in DSM-5 than ever before and some of the experts in the field were in the task force of DSM-5 and ICD-11. [2, 11]What is new in DSM-5, compared to DSM-IV. The organization of the chapters has been changed, so now the flow of the disorders follow life cycle. The book starts with neurodevelopmental disorders, followed by schizophrenia, bipolar and depressive disorders, and closing with neurocognitive disorders. …