It has taken the American Psychiatric Association 10 years to update the widely used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  The DSM is utilized by mental health professionals to accurately diagnose patients based on a standard set of guidelines which consist of symptoms, descriptions, and additional criteria for mental health issues.  After much anticipation, a draft of the revision was released this past month. 

According to Medscape Medical News *, some of the proposed changes include:

•A new category of autism spectrum disorders and a name change for mental retardation;

•Elimination of the current categories of substance abuse and dependence and replacing them with the new category addiction and related disorders;

•Creating a new category of behavioral addictions, in which gambling will be the sole disorder;

•New suicide scales for adults and adolescents to help clinicians identify those individuals most at risk;

•Consideration of a new risk syndromes category, with information to help clinicians identify earlier stages of some serious mental disorders, such as dementia and psychosis;

•A proposed new diagnostic category, temper dysregulation with dysphoria (TDD), within the Mood Disorders section of the manual; and

•New recognition of binge eating disorder and improved criteria for anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

The comprehensive list of proposed changes can be located on the DSM-5 website. 

 The interesting aspect about this version is that the American Psychiatric Association is encouraging individuals to review the draft revision of psychiatric diagnoses section and submit comments as part of their development process.  Comments will be accepted until April 20 after which the content will be further analyzed.

As of now, the proposed date for release of the DSM-V is May 2013.

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