What is the DSM-IV-R and how are the five axes used?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV-Text Revision
(DSM-IV-TR) describes a uniform system for assessing specific symptoms and matching them to almost 300 different mental disorders. The DSM-IV-TR has five major dimensions, called axes, which serve as guidelines for making decisions about symptoms.

Nine Major Problems: Axis I
Axis I contains lists of symptoms and criteria about the onset, severity, and duration
of these symptoms. These lists of symptoms are used to make a clinical diagnosis of
the following nine major clinical syndromes.
1 Disorders Usually First Diagnosed in Infancy, Childhood, or Adolescence
This category includes disorders that arise before adolescence, such as attention deficit disorders, autism, mental retardation, and stuttering.
2 Organic Mental Disorders
These disorders are temporary or permanent dysfunctions of brain tissue caused by diseases or chemicals, such as delirium, dementia (such as Alzheimer's disease), and amnesia.
3 Substance-Related Disorders
This category refers to the maladaptive use of drugs and alcohol. Mere consumption and recreational use of such substances are not disorders. This category requires an abnormal pattern of use (such as alcohol abuse, cocaine dependence).
4 Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders
The schizophrenias are characterized by psychotic symptoms (for example, grossly disorganized behavior, delusions, and hallucinations) and by over six months of behavioral deterioration.
5 Mood Disorders
The cardinal feature is emotional disturbance. Patients may or may not have psychotic symptoms. These disorders include major depression, bipolar disorder, and dysthymic disorder.
6 Anxiety Disorders
Th These disorders are characterized by physiological signs of anxiety (such as palpitations) and subjective feelings of tension, apprehension, or fear. Anxiety may be acute and focused (as in phobias) or continual and diff use (as in generalized anxiety disorder).
7 Somatoform Disorders
These disorders are dominated by somatic symptoms that resemble physical illnesses. These symptoms cannot be accounted for by organic damage. There must also be strong evidence that these symptoms are produced by psychological factors or conflicts. This category includes somatization disorder, conversion disorder, and hypochondriasis.
8 Dissociative Disorders
These disorders all feature a sudden, temporary alteration or dysfunction of memory,
consciousness, identity, and behavior, as in dissociative amnesia and multiple personality
disorder.
9 Sexual and Gender-Identity Disorders
There are three types of disorders in this category: gender-identity disorders (discomfort with identity as male or female), paraphilias (preference for unusual acts to achieve sexual arousal), and sexual dysfunctions (impairments in sexual functioning).

Axis II: Personality Disorders
This axis refers to disorders that involve patterns of personality traits that are longstanding, maladaptive, and inflexible and involve impaired functioning or subjective distress.

Axis III: General Medical Conditions
This axis refers to physical disorders or conditions, such as diabetes, arthritis, and hemophilia, that have an influence on someone's mental disorder.

Axis IV: Psychosocial and Environmental Problems
This axis refers to psychosocial and environmental problems that may affect the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of mental disorders in Axes I and II. A psychosocial or environmental problem may be a negative life event (such as a traumatic event), an environmental difficulty, a familial or other interpersonal stress, or an inadequacy of social support or personal resources.

Axis V: Global Assessment of Functioning Scale
This axis is used to rate the overall psychological, social, and occupational functioning of the individual on a scale from 1 (severe danger of hurting self) to 100 (superior functioning in all activities).