Assessing when a patient problem or symptom elevates to the severity required to diagnose a psychiatric condition can be a difficult task, particularly for inexperienced practitioners. The “Four D’s” consisting of deviance, dysfunction, distress, and danger can be a valuable tool to all practitioners when assessing reported traits, symptoms, or conditions in order to illuminate the point of at ...

OBJECTIVE Our purpose was to present and discuss the psychiatric diagnoses of patients who presented psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES) during video-electroencephalographic monitoring (VEEG). METHODS Out of 98 patients, a total of 28 patients presented PNES during the diagnostic procedure. In those cases in which the PNES that occurred during VEEG were validated by clinical history (cl...

BACKGROUND Comorbid psychiatric illness can undermine outcomes among homeless persons undergoing addiction treatment, and psychiatric specialty care is not always readily available. The prognosis for nonsubstance abuse psychiatric diagnoses among homeless persons receiving behaviorally-based addiction treatment, however, is little studied. RESULTS Data from an addiction treatment trial for 95...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to assess the incidence of sickness absence with psychiatric diagnoses from 1994-2000, and the distribution across gender, age groups, diagnostic groups and regions in a general population. METHODS The population at risk was defined as all individuals aged 16-66 years who were entitled to sickness benefits in 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2000 (n = 2,282,761 in 200...

The objective of this longitudinal study was to determine psychosocial predictors of military misconduct in a cohort of Marine Corps war veterans. The study included data from 20,746 male Marines who completed a life history questionnaire during initial basic training and were subsequently deployed to a combat zone. Associations between psychosocial variables, psychiatric diagnoses, and subsequ...

We used a national online registry to examine variation in cumulative prevalence of community diagnosis of psychiatric comorbidity in 4343 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Adjusted multivariate logistic regression models compared influence of individual, family, and geographic factors on cumulative prevalence of parent-reported anxiety disorder, depression, bipolar disorder, and a...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether knowing the diagnosis for sickness absence improves prediction of mortality. DESIGN Prospective cohort study established in 1985-8. Sickness absence records including diagnoses were obtained from computerised registers. SETTING 20 civil service departments in London. PARTICIPANTS 6478 civil servants aged 35-55 years. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES All cause, card...

BACKGROUND It is well known that most suicide cases meet criteria for a psychiatric disorder. However, rates of specific disorders vary considerably between studies and little information is known about gender and geographic differences. This study provides overall rates of total and specific psychiatric disorders in suicide completers and presents evidence supporting gender and geographic diff...

OBJECTIVE The meaning of the terms "validity" and "utility" as they apply to psychiatric diagnoses is examined. METHOD The authors discuss the concepts of validity, utility, and disease; review assumptions that have been made about mental disorders as disease entities; and examine the evidence that mental disorders are separated from one another and from normality by natural boundaries (zones...