Am J Psychiatry 1975; 132:1193-1197
Copyright © 1975 by American Psychiatric Association
A comprehensive approach to psychiatric diagnosis
JS Strauss
The author discusses problems of the typological diagnostic system
currently used in psychiatry, which focuses primarily on symptoms in
classifying psychiatric disorders. He describes a comprehensive diagnostic
system that would involve routine evaluation of five patient
characteristics: symptoms, circumstances associated with symptoms, previous
duration and course of illness, quality of personal relationships, and
level of work function. He suggests that such a multivariable approach to
psychiatric diagnosis can provide valuable information about the patient to
clinicians, researchers, and other mental health workers.
