The DSM-IV-TR is the latest version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, an American information handbook on mental disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association.
The first DSM was published in 1952 and the fourth (DSM-IV) was published in 1994, revised and updated as the DSM-IV-TR in 2000. A similar classification used by the World Health Organisation(WHO) and in Europe is the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Health Problems (ICD), the latest of which is the ICD10. The DSM is either hailed or disliked by users and originally differed a lot from the ICD. The latest versions, however, have been more consistent with the nomenclature of the ICD. The DSM-IV organizes each psychiatric diagnosis into five levels (axes) which relate to the different layers of a disorder or disability, namely its mental and developmental aspects, underlying personality aspects, associated medical conditions, social and environmental aspects and level of functionality. The DSM should never be seen as a rigid ‘cookbook’ for classifying mental diseases, but merely a consistent system for reliable diagnosis and research.
« Back to Glossary Index