Rates of Prolonged Grief Disorder: Considering relationship to the person who died and cause of death.

BACKGROUND: Prolonged Grief Disorder (PGD) was recently included in DSM-5-TR. The rate of PGD is known to vary according to a number of factors and little is known about how bereaved individuals view the diagnosis. METHODS: This cross-sectional study assessed PGD rates using the Prolonged Grief-13-Revised (PG-13-R) among a large sample (n = 1137) of bereaved individuals, considering the relationship to the deceased and cause of death. It also investigated bereaved individuals' attitudes toward the diagnosis. RESULTS: Overall, 34.3 % of the sample met PGD criteria. Bereaved parents had the highest rate (41.6 %), followed by bereaved spouses/partners (33.7 %) and siblings (29.4 %). According to cause of death, those bereaved by substance overdose had the highest rate (59.1 %), followed by homicide/suicide (46 %) and accidental (36 %). The majority of respondents (65-95.6 %) viewed their responses, as measured by the PG-13-R items, as normal, and 98.1 % agreed that their responses in general were normal. Fewer than 12 % reported that a PGD diagnosis would be helpful to them. LIMITATIONS: This study used a self-selecting, non-representative sample that was predominantly female and white. Findings may or may not apply to more diverse groups and cannot be generalized. This study also used a self-report measure rather than a clinical interview. CONCLUSIONS: In line with prior research, this study found higher rates of PGD in specific subgroups, including bereaved parents, spouses, and those who lost loved ones to substance overdose, homicide/suicide, or accidents. Bereaved individuals in this sample generally did not view receiving a diagnosis of PGD as helpful.

Abandonment Psychotherapy and Psychosocial Functioning Among Suicidal Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder: A 3-Year Naturalistic Follow-Up.

The authors present the results from a 3-year follow-up among 170 patients who had participated in the original randomized study, which consisted of three treatment conditions: (a) 3-month abandonment psychotherapy (AP) delivered by certified psychotherapists, (b) AP delivered by nurses, and (c) treatment as usual in a psychiatric crisis center. All subjects were recruited at the emergency room after a suicide attempt and met diagnostic criteria for borderline personality disorder and major depression. Psychotic symptoms, bipolar disorder, and mental retardation were exclusion criteria. At 3-year follow-up, 134 (78.8%) subjects had blind, reliable assessment by clinical psychologists. The intent-to-treat analysis indicated that those patients who had received AP during acute treatment had better global functioning, improved work adjustment, and less unemployment/disability at 3-year follow-up. No differences were found as a function of type of therapist delivering AP. The data confirm that short-term AP gains in psychosocial functioning are sustained over the longer term.

Misuse of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Diagnosis in Sexually Violent Predator Cases.

Supreme Court rulings supporting the constitutionality of sexually violent predator (SVP) statutes require that evaluators determine whether the rapist has a mental disorder (which justifies psychiatric commitment) or is just a common criminal (who cannot be preventively detained psychiatrically), but they offer no guidelines on making this crucial distinction. Until recently, state evaluators ignored the crucial fact that rape as a mental disorder has been roundly rejected by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) four times in the past 45 years (in DSM-III, DSM-III-R, DSM-IV, and DSM-5). The most common diagnosis in SVP cases was "other specified paraphilia, nonconsent," which was based on a misunderstanding and misuse of the DSM definition of "paraphilia." Sreenivasan and colleagues suggest antisocial personality disorder as an appropriate standalone diagnosis to replace "paraphilia" and report it has been allowable in 19 states, although it has been disallowed in New York state courts and in the federal courts. My contrasting view is that antisocial personality disorder is not an appropriate diagnosis in SVP cases because it overlaps almost completely with common criminality, holds only a very marginal place in psychiatric diagnosis, never serves as grounds for civil psychiatric commitment, and is never considered a valid psychiatric excuse to avoid prison for rape and therefore is not a legitimate psychiatric excuse for preventive incarceration after the criminal sentence has been served.

Public, health professional and legislator perspectives on the concept of psychiatric disease: a population-based survey.

OBJECTIVE: To assess which mental health-related states of being are perceived as diseases by psychiatrists, non-psychiatric physicians, nurses, parliament members and laypeople. DESIGN AND SETTING: A population-based, mailed survey in Finland. PARTICIPANTS: Respondents from a random sample of 3000 laypeople, 1500 physicians, 1500 nurses and all 200 members of the parliament (MPs) of Finland. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Respondents' perspectives on 20 mental health-related states of being as diseases, measuring the extent of agreement with the claim: '[This state of being] is a disease'. RESULTS: Of the 6200 people approached, we received 3259 eligible responses (53%). Two conditions (schizophrenia and autism) were considered to be diseases by at least 75% and two states (grief and homosexuality) were considered not to be diseases by at least 75% in each group. A majority (at least 50% in each group) considered seven states as diseases (anorexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bulimia, depression, generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder and personality disorder) and three not to be diseases (absence of sexual desire, premature ejaculation and transsexualism). In six states, there was a wide divergence of opinion (alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling addiction, insomnia, social anxiety disorder and work exhaustion). Psychiatrists were significantly more inclined to considering states of being as diseases relative to other groups, followed by non-psychiatric physicians, nurses, MPs and laypeople. CONCLUSIONS: Respondents agreed that some conditions, such as schizophrenia and autism, are diseases and other states, such as grief and homosexuality, are not; for others, there was considerable disagreement. Psychiatrists are more inclined to consider mental health-related states of being as diseases compared with other physicians, who, in turn, are more inclined than other constituencies. Understanding notions of disease may underlie important debates in public policy and practice in areas of mental health and behaviour, and have implications for resource allocation and stigma.

Guidance for Modifying the Definition of Diseases: A Checklist.

Importance: No guidelines exist currently for guideline panels and others considering changes to disease definitions. Panels frequently widen disease definitions, increasing the proportion of the population labeled as unwell and potentially causing harm to patients. We set out to develop a checklist of issues, with guidance, for panels to consider prior to modifying a disease definition. Observations: We assembled a multidisciplinary, multicontinent working group of 13 members, including members from the Guidelines International Network, Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation working group, and the World Health Organisation. We used a 5-step process to develop the checklist: (1) a literature review of issues, (2) a draft outline document, (3) a Delphi process of feedback on the list of issues, (4) a 1-day face-to-face meeting, and (5) further refinement of the checklist. The literature review identified 12 potential issues. From these, the group developed an 8-item checklist that consisted of definition changes, number of people affected, trigger, prognostic ability, disease definition precision and accuracy, potential benefits, potential harms, and the balance between potential harms and benefits. The checklist is accompanied by an explanation of each item and the types of evidence to assess each one. We used a panel's recent consideration of a proposed change in the definition of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) to illustrate use of the checklist. Conclusions and Relevance: We propose that the checklist be piloted and validated by groups developing new guidelines. We anticipate that the use of the checklist will be a first step to guidance and better documentation of definition changes prior to introducing modified disease definitions.

ADHD: a critical update for educational professionals.

A medical approach towards behavioural problems could make professionals without a medical background, like teachers and other educational professionals feel inapt. In this article, we raise six scientifically grounded considerations regarding ADHD, currently the most prevalent childhood psychiatric diagnosis. These "need to knows" show just how misguided and potentially stigmatizing current conceptualizations of unruly behaviour have become. Some examples are given of how teachers are misinformed, and alternative ways of reporting about neuropsychological research are suggested. A reinvigorated conceptual understanding of ADHD could help educational institutions to avoid the expensive outsourcing of behavioural problems that could also-and justifiably better-be framed as part of education's primary mission of professionalized socialization.

Entrenched reductionisms: The bête noire of psychiatry.

Like Hannah Decker, I too deplore the destructive battle of psychosocial and biological reductionisms that has bedeviled psychiatry. When I started my psychiatric training almost 50 years ago, the prevailing model for understanding mental disorders was broadly bio/psycho/social in the grand tradition of Pinel and Freud, brought to and adapted in America by Adolph Meyer. When psychiatry is practiced well, it integrates insights from all the different ways of understanding human nature. Unfortunately, the mental health field has since degenerated into a civil war between the biomedical and psychosocial models with little room for compromise or finding middle ground. The inflexible biological reductionists assume that genes are destiny and that there is a pill for every problem: they take a "mindless" position. The inflexible psychosocial reductionists assume that mental health problems all arise from unpleasant experience: They take a "brainless" position. I have spent a good deal of frustrating time trying to open the minds of extremists at both ends, though rarely making much headway. In my view, however, and where I differ from Decker, the reductionisms do not sort so neatly into alternating historical periods.