Abstract
In 1938, doctors Jules Masserman and Hugh Carmichael published a paper in The Journal of Mental Science entitled “Diagnosis and Prognosis in Psychiatry.”1 In this paper they reported that in a series of 100 inpatients followed up one year after discharge, over 40% required a “major revision” of their prior diagnosis. Another study, by A. T. Boisen,2 published that same year in the journal Psychiatry, reported huge variations in diagnoses of sub-types of dementia praecox (the name commonly used at the time for what we now call schizophrenia) between different states in the U.S., and even between different hospitals in the same state. For example, in one hospital in Illinois, 76% of dementia praecox patients were considered hebephrenic, while in another hospital in the same state only 11% of dementia praecox patients were diagnosed as hebephrenic.
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References
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Rosenzweig, N. (1984). Diagnosis and the Concept of Mental Illness. In: Hudolin, V. (eds) Social Psychiatry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4535-0_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-4535-0_9
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