June 2011
The WPA-WHO Global Survey of Psychiatrists’ Attitudes Towards Mental Disorders Classification
This article describes the results of the WPA-WHO Global Survey of 4,887 psychiatrists in 44 countries regarding their use of diagnostic classification systems in clinical practice, and the desirable characteristics of a classification of mental disorders. The WHO will use these results to improve the clinical utility of the ICD classification of mental disorders through the current ICD-10 revision process.
>> Please click here to read the full report
Over two-thirds of global psychiatrists indicated that they
prefer a system of flexible guidance that would allow for
cultural variation and clinical judgment as opposed to a system
of strict criteria, and this was true of global users of both
the ICD-10 and the DSM-IV. Opinions were divided about
how best to incorporate concepts of severity and functional
status, suggesting that these areas would be an important
focus of further testing, while most respondents were receptive
to a system that incorporated a dimensional component
in the description of mental disorders. In spite of the recent
controversies about the medicalization of normal suffering
(17), most global psychiatrists felt that a diagnosis of depression
should be assigned even in the presence of potentially
explanatory life events.
Although the large majority of psychiatrists worldwide
appeared to endorse the possibility of a global, cross-culturally
applicable classification system of mental disorders, results
of this survey point to several areas of caution.
This article describes the results of the WPA-WHO Global Survey of 4,887 psychiatrists in 44 countries regarding their use of diagnostic classification systems in clinical practice, and the desirable characteristics of a classification of mental disorders. The WHO will use these results to improve the clinical utility of the ICD classification of mental disorders through the current ICD-10 revision process.
>> Please click here to read the full report
Over two-thirds of global psychiatrists indicated that they
prefer a system of flexible guidance that would allow for
cultural variation and clinical judgment as opposed to a system
of strict criteria, and this was true of global users of both
the ICD-10 and the DSM-IV. Opinions were divided about
how best to incorporate concepts of severity and functional
status, suggesting that these areas would be an important
focus of further testing, while most respondents were receptive
to a system that incorporated a dimensional component
in the description of mental disorders. In spite of the recent
controversies about the medicalization of normal suffering
(17), most global psychiatrists felt that a diagnosis of depression
should be assigned even in the presence of potentially
explanatory life events.
Although the large majority of psychiatrists worldwide
appeared to endorse the possibility of a global, cross-culturally
applicable classification system of mental disorders, results
of this survey point to several areas of caution.
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