Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T00:26:43.705Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Influence of the 1968 Glossary on the Diagnoses of English Psychiatrists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

R. E. Kendell
R. E. Kendell*
Affiliation:
The Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Since 1949 the diagnoses given to all patients admitted to psychiatric hospitals in England and Wales have been collected and tabulated, initially by the General Register Office and more recently by the Ministry of Health and its successor the Department of Health and Social Security. These data are published regularly and have been used for many purposes—to follow trends in admission and discharge rates, to predict future bed and manpower needs, and in international comparisons. Before 1970 there was no official nomenclature and psychiatrists used whatever diagnostic terms they wished when completing the S.B.H.15 index cards provided for each patient (Department of Health and Social Security, 1970, Appendix A). In the Department of Health these diagnoses were converted into 3-digit numbers, using a complex code developed by the General Register Office (D.H.S.S., 1970, Appendix B), and finally these code numbers were grouped together to make them conform as well as possible with the nomenclature of the 7th edition of the International Classification of Disease (ICD 7). Inevitably this procedure was unsatisfactory. It was cumbersome; it only permitted a few broad diagnostic categories to be distinguished with any confidence; and it involved making a number of arbitrary assumptions about the relationship between the different nomenclatures involved.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 123 , Issue 576 , November 1973 , pp. 527 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1973 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cooper, J. E., Kendell, R. E., Gurland, B. J., Sharps, L., Copeland, J. R. M., and Simon, R. (1972). Psychiatric Diagnosis in New York and London. London: Maudsley Monograph No. 20.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1970). Psychiatric Hospitals and Units in England and Wales. In-patient Statistics from the Mental Health Enquiry for the year 1968. London: Statistical Report Series No. 11.Google Scholar
Department of Health and Social Security (1972). Psychiatric Hospitals and Units in England and Wales. In-patient Statistics from the Mental Health Enquiry for the year 1970. London: Statistical Report Series No. 13.Google Scholar
General Register Office (1968). A Glossary of Mental Disorders. London: Studies on Medical and Population Subjects No. 22.Google Scholar
Kramer, M. (1961). ‘Some problems for international research suggested by observations on differences in first admission rates to the mental hospitals of England and Wales and of the United States’, in Proceedings of the Third World Congress of Psychiatry, vol. 3, pp. 153–160. Montreal.Google Scholar
Wing, L. (1970). ‘Observations on the psychiatric section of the international classification of diseases and the British glossary of mental disorders.’ Psychological Medicine f 1, 79–85.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.