Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 4:255-270 (2004)
Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention Vol. 4 No. 3, © Oxford University Press 2004; all rights reserved.
Are Children's DSM Diagnoses Accurate?
From the School of Public Policy and Social Research, University of California, Los Angeles.
Contact author: Stuart A. Kirk, DSW, Dept. of Social Welfare, 3250 PPB, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095. E-mail: kirk{at}ucla.edu.
The purpose of this paper is to gauge DSM's scientific accuracy, using the prevalent children's diagnoses of attention deficit and disruptive behavior disorders as examples. I use the term accuracy to refer to a bundle of questions about the clarity of definitions that distinguish one category from another, the conceptual coherence of these definitions, and the ability of users of the classification system to implement these distinctions consistently in practice. With regard to DSM, I begin with a review of DSM's definitions of children's disorders and their ability to identify and distinguish those children who are disordered from those who are not. I then review the extent to which clinicians can use these distinctions reliably. Finally, I look at some additional problems with the validity of children's diagnoses as defined by DSM.
KEY WORDS: children, DSM diagnosis, validity, reliability
