DSM-V expected to explore physical, mental health links

The manual's planned revision also will look at psychiatric health throughout the lifespan as well as gender and cultural issues.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, AMNews staff. Aug. 13, 2007.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is about to get a makeover -- it will be the focus of a detailed overhaul that experts hope will reflect emerging scientific understanding and expect to take years to finish.

Those involved in the process predict that the completed revision will place a greater emphasis on how psychiatric illnesses change throughout a person's life and how different mental health issues interact. Gender and cultural issues also are expected to play a bigger role, along with a greater examination of the connection between mental and physical health.

"It's very important to have a better paradigm than what we've been using to look at somatic presentations of mental disorders, and the relationship to disorders in other organ systems," said Darrel Regier, MD, MPH, vice chair of the task force on the revision and the American Psychiatric Assn.'s director of research.

The last full revision, the DSM-IV, came out in 1994, although a text update was issued in 2000. The DSM-V is due out in 2012, but there is a lot of work to be done before then.

Last month the APA announced the members of the revision task force. Working groups addressing specific mental health issues will be appointed later this year.

A draft will be available for public comment in 2009. This step also will allow researchers to undertake clinical trials to determine the usefulness of the diagnostic categories.

"As the nation's dictionary of mental illnesses, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual plays a vital role in assuring that patients get proper diagnoses and treatments for their mental health concerns," said David J. Kupfer, MD, task force chair. "The APA has entrusted the revision of the DSM to world-renowned scientists who have vast experience in research, clinical care, biology, genetics, statistics, epidemiology, public health and consumer advocacy."