Wednesday, May 4, 2011

APA Announces Reorganization of DSM-5 Chapters

Lightspring/shutterstock
APA today announced a new organizing framework for DSM-5, in which chapters will be arranged by general categories such as neurodevelopmental, emotional and somatic to reflect potential commonalities in etiology within larger disorder groups. The manual’s new organization combines certain disorders under more comprehensive chapter headings while breaking others out from their previous categories. The reorganization of chapters is the latest step in the evolution of the new diagnostic manual, a 14-year project that has involved hundreds of experts from the United States and abroad. The first round of field trials is now testing the new diagnostic criteria in real-world settings, including at nearly a dozen larger academic and clinical centers; almost 3,900 mental health professionals in individual practice and smaller settings also will participate before the trials conclude. Publication is scheduled for 2013. For more information see Psychiatric News, http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/46/5/7.full.