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Reasons for Diagnostic Disagreement

C. H. WARD, M.D.; A. T. BECK, M.D.; M. MENDELSON, M.D.; J. E. MOCK, M.D.; J. K. ERBAUGH, M.D.

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1962;7(3):198-205.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Much current thinking holds psychiatric diagnosis to be "the soft underbelly of psychiatry"⁴ and "an indictment of the present state of psychiatry."⁷ Diagnosis is said to cause behavioral scientists "marked feelings of inferiority"⁶ because of their alleged inability to obtain agreement rates significantly better than chance.⁵ To the extent that these opinions are accurate, it is clearly an important question why a nomenclature, which is the distillation of so much experience over so many years,¹ should so fail the test of clinical usefulness. It is equally clear that the problems involved are complex and vexing, not likely amenable to any quick or easy solution.

A previous paper² reviewed the literature on concurrence of diagnoses and pointed out that prior studies had methodological limitations which may have spuriously lowered diagnostic agreement. In another article,³ we reported the results of a . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
PHILADELPHIA

From the Departments of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Philadeliphia General Hospital.

Footnotes
Submitted for publication Nov. 21, 1961.

This investigation was supported by Research Grant M 3358 from the National Institute of Mental Health.

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