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In his article on the structure of common mental disorders, Krueger¹ reports on the analysis of comorbidity data obtained in a sample of 8098 noninstitutionalized US civilians in the National Comorbidity Survey. The analysis is carried out using confirmatory factor analysis. The confirmatory factor analysis yields a 3-factor model that accounts reasonably well for the obtained covariance between several mental disorders. This leads Krueger to conclude that "The results offer a novel perspective on comorbidity, suggesting that comorbidity results from common, underlying core psychopathological processes."¹(p921)

However, diagnoses were made using the criteria of the DSM-III-R "without the imposition of hierarchical exclusionary rules."¹(p922) Although this is fine as long as correlations among disorders are interpreted as reflecting comorbidity patterns, a problem arises when the obtained correlations are subjected to a confirmatory factor analysis and the resulting factors are interpreted as "underlying core psychopathological processes." This problem is touched on . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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