: 378–84 According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders fourth edition (DSM IV-TR), a frequent and widely used guide for the diagnosis of mental disorders, the following symptoms and characteristics are the diagnostic criteria for kleptomania:

repeated inability to defend against urges to steal things that are not essential for private use or for their economic value;
escalating sense of pressure immediately prior to performing the theft;
satisfaction, fulfillment or relief at the point of performing the theft;
the theft is not executed to convey antagonism or revenge, and is not in reaction to a delusion or a fantasy; and
the thieving is not better accounted for by behavior disorder, a manic episode, or antisocial personality disorder.Skeptics have decried kleptomania as an invalid psychiatric concept exploited in legal defenses of wealthy female shoplifters. During the twentieth century, kleptomania was strongly linked with the increased prevalence of department stores, and "department store kleptomaniacs" were a widely held social stereotype that had political implications. Comorbidity
Kleptomania seems to be linked with other psychiatric disorders, especially mood swings, anxiety, eating disorders, and alcohol and substance use. The occurrence of stealing as a behavior in conjunction with eating disorders, particularly bulimia nervosa, is frequently taken as a sign of the harshness of the eating disorder.A likely connection between depression and kleptomania was reported as early as 1911. It has since been extensively established in clinical observations and available case reports. The mood disorder could come first or co-occur with the beginning of kleptomania.
In advanced cases, depression may result in self-inflicted injury and could even lead to suicide. Some people have reported relief from depression or manic symptoms after theft.It has been suggested that because kleptomania is linked to strong compulsive and impulsive qualities, it can be viewed as a variation of obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders, together with pathological gambling, compulsive buying, pyromania, nailbiting and trichotillomania. This point achieves support from the unusually higher cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD; see below) in close relatives of patients with kleptomania. Substance use disorder
Kleptomania and drug addictions seem to have central qualities in common, including:

recurring or compulsive participation in a behavior in spite of undesirable penalties;
weakened control over the disturbing behavior;
a need or desire condition before taking part in the problematic behavior; and
a positive pleasure-seeking condition throughout the act of the disturbing behavior.Data from epidemiological studies additionally propose that there is an affiliation between kleptomania and substance use disorders along with high rates in a unidirectional manner. Phenomenological data maintain that there is a relationship between kleptomania and drug addictions. A higher percentage of cases of kleptomania has been noted in adolescents and young adults, and a lesser number of cases among older adults, which imply an analogous natural history to that seen in substance use disorders. Family history data also propose a probable common genetic input to alcohol use and kleptomania. Substance use disorders are more common in kin of persons with kleptomania than in the general population.