Not sure if this will come to anything but I received a form letter today saying that I've been added to the list of potential participants for DSM-5 field trials. I hope they will decide to do field trials for hoarding but this is just a form letter and nothing more. Did anyone else hear from them?
I quote, "the work group is recommending that Hoarding Disorder be included in DSM-5 but is still examining the evidence as to whether inclusion is merited in the main manual or in an Appendix for Further Research". That's about where we were before, I think. For those who are wondering what worldlygoods is talking about ...
Short version:There is a proposal to make "hoarding" a special diagnosis all its own. (It was previously regarded by some as a symptom of some other disorders).
The new special diagnosis of "hoarding disorder" would be clearer than previously theorized. If approved, it would be included in the new "official" diagnosis manual. The manual is called the "DSM".
(Current version is called DSM-IV.
New version will be called DSM-5)
There is no guarantee that "Hoarding Disorder" would be included ... it's just a theoretical proposal for now.
From February-April 2010, there was a request for comments from the general public about this proposed diagnosis of "hoarding disorder". The public submitted these comments to the workgroup of psychiatrists/psychologists who are in the process of writing the new manual. The "comments period" has closed.
The next phase will be some "field trials" and then more discussion. The DSM-5 will take a couple more years to be completed.
Worldlygoods submitted comments during the comments period. She was contacted by the researchers, to ask if she wishes to participate in the next phase.
Link to the proposed definition:(Note that they updated it on May 19, 2010).
www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=398
Full explanation:The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)
is the official categorization of mental illnesses in the USA.
The DSM is the official manual written by
the APA (American Psychiatric Association).
This is how mental health professionals record a diagnosis in a patient's medical records.
This is how insurance companies authorize payment for treatment.
The DSM was first written in the year 1952.
Major changes are written approximately every 12-14 years.
The 4th edition was released in 1994
and is the one being used now
and it is called the "DSM-IV".
(No mention of hoarding).
The 5th edition will be released in 2013
and will be called the "DSM-5".
Hoarding has NEVER been mentioned anywhere in the DSM, in any version.
Hoarding was regarded by some mental health professionals as being "related to OCD", or "related to OCPD" ...
... but that was never in the "official" DSM.
Many mental health professionals have recorded diagnoses of "anxiety" or "OCD" or "OCPD" or "depression" ... recorded these types of things on the medical record. And then they manually wrote text describing the hoarding behaviors as a part of the larger diagnosis. This is the only way insurance companies would pay for treatment.
The workgroups of psychiatrists/psychologists preparing ideas/proposals for possible updates to the DSM-5 ...
... made a proposal for "Hoarding Disorder" to have its own classification as separate diagnosis all its own (and not just a symptom of something else), because researchers have been discovering that many hoarders are neither OCD nor OCPD.
In February 2010, this was announced to the public via the media and via the APA's DSM website.
The public was given the opportunity to write in and reply with comments. Yes the general public was asked to give comments about all the proposed updates to the DSM.
The comment period closed on April 20, 2010.
Now that the public comment period is closed, and the DSM workgroup teams of psychiatrists/psychologists have had a chance to read all the comments ... they are going to the next phase of the process.
The next phase will be 9 or 10 months of "field trials" of these proposed revisions ... in clinical and research settings.
The results of the field trials will be studied and analyzed in the year 2011. Further edits to the DSM-5 will be proposed. Followed by more field testing, more analysis, more postings to the website, more public commenting, etc, ... and then repeating this entire process a couple more times during next three years.
Final vote scheduled for December 2012, with publication in May 2013.
