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The reliability of psychiatric diagnosis in Israel's Psychiatric Case Register
Author(s) -
Goodman A. B.,
Rahav M.,
Popper M.,
Ginath Y.,
Pearl E.
Publication year - 1984
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1984.tb02510.x
Subject(s) - medical diagnosis , psychiatric diagnosis , psychiatry , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , medicine , psychology , pathology
– To determine the reliability of psychiatric diagnoses in the Israel Psychiatric Case Register, DSM‐III criteria were applied to case record abstracts of first admissions to a large psychiatric hospital in Jerusalem. The DSM‐III diagnoses were compared with ICD‐8 recorde diagnoses. Between 40 and 50% of those originally diagnosed as schizophrenia were re‐diagnosed into less severe categories. The proportion diagnosed as affective disorder doubled from 21% for ICD‐8 diagnoses to 40% for DSM‐III diagnoses. The unreliability concerned the diagnoses of schizophrenia and affective disorder. Findings suggest that the introduction of standardized diagnostic criteria in Israel will lead to a substantial increase in the number of cases diagnosed as affective disorder, although difficulties involved in differentiating schizophrenia from the major affective disorders remain. The DSM‐III findings suggest a high prevalence of affective disorders among Jews.