MOOD (AFFECTIVE) DISORDERS (F3) - RESULTS FROM THE ICD-10 FIELD TRIALOF THE DIAGNOSTIC-CRITERIA FOR RESEARCH IN GERMAN-SPEAKING COUNTRIES

The present study reports results of the ICD-10 research criteria tria l concerning the diagnosis of affective disorders (section F3), On the basis of written case reports and videotapes a total of 451 clinician s from 34 centres in German-speaking countries prepared 2,228 diagnost ic ratings on 39 different psychiatric patients, Three of the 39 cases met the diagnostic criteria for affective disorders, and 248 of the d iagnostic assessments referred to these cases. The majority of clinici ans rated the reliability, the ease and the suitability of the diagnos tic criteria positively, The reliability of the affective disorders wa s extremely good, with a kappa of 0.93 in the range of 2-character dia gnoses, The reliability of the 3-character categories was much smaller : Kappa values for depressive episode (F31) and recurrent depressive d isorder (F33) were 0.68 and 0.54, respectively. The lowest concordance had a kappa value of 0.22 and was found in the case report of dysthym ia (F34.1). Therefore a more precise definition of the diagnostic crit eria for dysthymia would be desirable.