CLASSIFICATION AND DIAGNOSTICS WHEN TESTI NG ANTIDEPRESSANTS

Psychiatric diagnoses and systems of disease classification are tools which serve many purposes in the clinical routine, in research, and in health administration. Good quality research in psychopharmacology is based upon reliable diagnostic concepts, but at the same time results produced by this research also serve as an important source for valid ation of diagnostic concepts. The dialectic interaction between descri ptive concepts of illness on the one hand and the results of experimen tal research on the other illustrates the need for continual developme nt of up-to-date diagnostic terminology and revised classification sys tems. The coming of ICD-11 is imminent.