DSM-5 round-up: Lane on “DSM-5 Facts” site, Frances on DSM-5, Kupfer on Frances

DSM-5 round-up: Lane on new “DSM-5 Facts” site, Frances on DSM-5, Kupfer on Frances

Post #176 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-2cQ

What we were waiting for were the “full results” of the reliability data from the DSM-5 field trials.

What we got was a public relations sticking plaster.

Christopher Lane reported in Side Effects on the American Psychiatric Association’s new platform DSM-5 Facts – a website launched, last week, to “correct the record, highlight key omissions – and provide essential perspective so that the public has a complete and accurate view…“

Side Effects

Christopher Lane, Ph.D. | June 4, 2012

The APA’s PR Problem
Why is the American Psychiatric Association hiring a PR company to market DSM-5?

As the news tumbled out last week that the American Psychiatric Association had hired GYMR, an expensive PR company, to help the organization “execute strategies that include image and alliance building, public education campaigns or media relations to harness the formidable forces of Washington and produce successful results for clients” (services that GYMR brags about in its mission statement), it became clearer than ever that the APA has more than an image-problem with DSM-5…

Read on

In a long interview with Allen Frances, Stephen M. Strakowski asks: What’s wrong with DSM-5 and what needs to be done to put it right?

Medscape Psychiatry

What’s Wrong With DSM-5?

Stephen M. Strakowski, MD; Allen J. Frances, MD | June 1, 2012

Addressing Prescription Drug Abuse: Introduction
The Biggest Problems With DSM-5?
What Would Dr. Frances Do?
A Safe, Credible DSM-5 by 2013?

…The reliability-test results for stage 1 show that DSM-5 badly flunked and that stage 2 is desperately needed. The leadership lowered expectations with statements indicating that they are willing to accept diagnostic agreements far below historical levels and include proposals achieving diagnostic agreements that are little better than chance. This is simply not acceptable and should not be accepted…

…it is discouraging that DSM-5 has not accepted the need for external review, is going forward with poorly written and unreliable criteria sets, and still contains so many unsafe and scientifically unsound proposals. It remains to be seen whether DSM-5 will be responsive to what is certain to be increasing external pressure to trim its sails and improve its quality. If it attempts to hang tough, I think DSM-5 will no longer be used much (if at all) overseas and will also lose much of its following in the United States…

Task Force Chair, David J. Kupfer, MD, responds:

Medscape Psychiatry

Dr. Kupfer Defends DSM-5

David J. Kupfer, MD | June 1, 2012

Editor’s Note:
In a recent Medscape interview with Dr. Stephen Strakowski, DSM-IV Task Force Chair Dr. Allen J. Frances expressed serious concerns about a number of proposals being considered for inclusion in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), scheduled for release in May 2013. Below, DSM-5 Task Force Chair Dr. David Kupfer defends the proposed revision.

A DSM-5 Defense
Will DSM-5 Inflate Prevalence?

A third Medscape report from the APA’s Annual Conference by Nassir Ghaemi, MD:

Medscape Psychiatry

DSM-5: Finding a Middle Ground

Nassir Ghaemi, MD | June 1, 2012

Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine; Director, Mood Disorders Program, Psychiatry Department, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts

DSM-5: Validity vs Reliability
But DSM-IV Has Limitations, Too

Two more commentaries from 1 Boring Old Man on DSM-5 process and field trial Kappa results:

the APA Trustees must intervene in the DSM-5…

1 Boring Old Man | June 4, 2012

and will…

1 Boring Old Man | June 3, 2012