PY5CRT13 Chapter : What Is the DSM and Why Was It Revised
19 Apr 2022
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The diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (dsm) provides all the information necessary (descriptions, lists of symptoms) to diagnose mental disorders. As such, it provides clinicians with specific diagnostic criteria for each disorder. This creates a common language so that a specific diagnosis means the same thing to one clinician as it does to another. This also helps ensure diagnostic accuracy and consistency (reliability). If patients could not be diagnosed reliably it would be impossible to compare different treatments for patients with similar conditions. Although the dsm does not include information about treatment, clinicians need to have an accurate diagnosis in order to select the most appropriate treatment for their patients. Since dsm-1 was first published in 1952, the dsm has been revised from time to time. Revisions are important because they allow new scientific developments to be incorporated into how we think about mental disorders.
