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The clinical inadequacy of the DSM-5 classification of somatic symptom and related disorders: an alternative trans-diagnostic model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 December 2015

Fiammetta Cosci  and
Giovanni A. Fava
Fiammetta Cosci*
Affiliation:
Department of Health Sciences, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
Giovanni A. Fava
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy Department of Psychiatry, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: Fiammetta Cosci, Department of Health Sciences, Unit of Psychology and Psychiatry, via di San Salvi, 12 50135 Florence, Italy. (Email: [email protected])
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Abstract

The Diagnostic and Statistical of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) somatic symptom and related disorders chapter has a limited clinical utility. In addition to the problems that the single diagnostic rubrics and the deletion of the diagnosis of hypochondriasis entail, there are 2 major ambiguities: (1) the use of the term “somatic symptoms” reflects an ill-defined concept of somatization and (2) abnormal illness behavior is included in all diagnostic rubrics, but it is never conceptually defined. In the present review of the literature, we will attempt to approach the clinical issue from a different angle, by introducing the trans-diagnostic viewpoint of illness behavior and propose an alternative clinimetric classification system, based on the Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research.

Keywords

ClinimetricDiagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic ResearchDSM-5illness behaviorsomatic symptom
Type
Review Articles
Information
CNS Spectrums , Volume 21 , Special Issue 4: Nosology in DSM5 vs. ICD , August 2016 , pp. 310 - 317
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2015 

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