Am J Psychiatry 1984; 141:514-519
Copyright © 1984 by American Psychiatric Association
Conduct disorder and its synonyms: diagnoses of dubious validity and usefulness
DO Lewis, M Lewis, L Unger and C Goldman
Psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents from city and voluntary services
who had been diagnosed as having conduct disorder were compared with
psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents who had never been so diagnosed.
There were no significant symptomatic differences. The major factor
distinguishing adolescents ever diagnosed as having conduct disorder was
violence, regardless of other symptoms. The most common discharge diagnosis
of those who had formerly been diagnosed as having conduct disorder was
schizophrenia. However, even violence did not distinguish those discharged
with a diagnosis of conduct disorder from those whose diagnoses were
subsequently changed. With its focus on manifest behaviors and its lack of
clear exclusionary criteria, the conduct disorder diagnosis obfuscates
other potentially treatable neuropsychiatric disorders.
