Mental health professionals' natural taxonomies of mental disorders: implications for the clinical utility of the ICD 11 and the DSM 5.
OBJECTIVE To examine the conceptualizations held by psychiatrists and psychologists around the world of the relationships among mental disorders in order to inform decisions about the structure of the classification of mental and behavioral disorders in World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 11th Revision (ICD 11) METHOD 517 mental health professionals in 8 countries sorted 60 cards containing the names of mental disorders into groups of similar disorders, and then formed a hierarchical structure by aggregating and disaggregating these groupings. Distance matrices were created from the sorting data and used in cluster and correlation analyses. RESULTS Clinicians' taxonomies were rational, interpretable, and extremely stable across countries, diagnostic system used, and profession. Clinicians' consensus classification structure was different from ICD 10 and the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 4th Edition (DSM IV) but in many respects consistent with ICD 11 proposals. CONCLUSIONS The clinical utility of the ICD 11 may be improved by making its structure more compatible with the common conceptual organization of mental disorders observed across diverse global clinicians.
Journal of clinical psychology