New Edition of the DSM Finalised 13 Dec 2012

The DSM-5 has been finalised and is due to go on sale from May next year. Here are some of the responses and commentary in the last week to the changes:

• Thinking Clearly About Personality Disorders.

  The new proposal — part of the psychiatric association’s effort of many years to update its influential diagnostic manual — is intended to clarify these diagnoses and better integrate them into clinical practice, to extend and improve treatment. But the effort has run into so much opposition that it will probably be relegated to the back of the manual, if it’s allowed in at all.

• A critical take by Allan Frances who was the chair of the DSM-IV Task Force, DSM 5 Is Guide Not Bible—Ignore Its Ten Worst Changes.

  New diagnoses in psychiatry are more dangerous than new drugs because they influence whether or not millions of people are placed on drugs- often by primary care doctors after brief visits. Before their introduction, new diagnoses deserve the same level of attention to safety that we devote to new drugs. APA is not competent to do this.

• Science blogger Vaughan Bell adds his take on the changes: The DSM-5 has been finalised.

• A detailed monitoring the revisions of both the DSM and ICD can be found at Dx Revision Watch.

  This site has been monitoring the revision processes towards DSM-5 and ICD-11, generally, since the beginning of 2010 and endeavours to provide timely updates and content of interest to consumer groups and professionals who are stakeholders in these classification systems.

• A concise breakdown to the updated manual here: Final DSM 5 Approved by American Psychiatric Association.

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