In a rare step, doctors on a panel revising psychiatry's influential diagnostic manual have backed away from two controversial proposals that would have expanded the number of people identified as having psychotic or depressive disorders.
The doctors dropped two diagnoses that they ultimately concluded were not supported by the evidence: "attenuated psychosis syndrome," proposed to identify people at risk of developing psychosis, and "mixed anxiety depressive disorder," a hybrid of the two mood problems.
They also tweaked their proposed definition of depression to allay fears that the normal sadness people experience after the loss of a loved one, a job or a marriage would not be mistaken for a mental disorder.
But the panel, appointed by the American Psychiatric Association to complete the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or D.S.M., did not retreat from another widely criticized proposal, to streamline the definition of autism. Predictions by some experts that the new definition will sharply reduce the number of people given a diagnosis are off base, panel members said, citing evidence from a newly completed study.
Both the study and the newly announced reversals are being debated this week at the psychiatric association's annual meeting in Philadelphia, where dozens of sessions were devoted to the D.S.M., the standard reference for mental disorders, which drives research, treatment and insurance decisions.
Dr. David J. Kupfer, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and the chairman of the task force making revisions, said the changes came in response to field trials — real-world studies testing whether newly proposed diagnoses are reliable from one psychiatrist to the next — and public commentary. The psychiatric association has posted its proposals online, inviting public reaction. More than 10,500 comments have come through the site, many of them critical.
"At long last, DSM 5 is correcting itself and has rejected its worst proposals," said Dr. Allen Frances, a former task force chairman and professor emeritus at Duke University who has been one of the most prominent critics. "But a great deal more certainly needs to be accomplished. Most important are the elimination of other dangerous new diagnoses and the rewriting of all the many unreliable criteria sets."
The criticism of "mixed anxiety depressive disorder" was that it would unnecessarily tag millions of moderately neurotic people with a psychiatric label. Mixed states of depression and anxiety can be severe, but the proposed hybrid had looser criteria than either depression or anxiety on its own — lowering the bar significantly for a diagnosis.
The primary concern with "attenuated psychosis syndrome" was that it would lead to unwarranted drug treatment of youngsters. The diagnosis was meant to identify people, usually young, who exhibit psychosis-like symptoms and treat them early. But 70 percent to 80 percent of people who report having weird thoughts and odd hallucinations do not ever qualify for a full-blown diagnosis — and might be treated for something they did not have.
On the manual's site, in blogs and other public forums, advocates, therapists, scientists and people receiving services sounded off on the proposed changes. The psychiatric association made an effort to listen, Dr. Kupfer said. The site "is not just a P.R. effort," he said. "We're getting feedback, and it all goes to the working groups."
The proposed definition of autism, which would eliminate related labels like Asperger's syndrome and "pervasive developmental disorder," came under fire in January, when researchers at Yale University presented evidence that about half of the people who currently have a diagnosis on the high end of the "autism spectrum" would no long qualify under the new definition.
At this week's annual meeting, researchers presented data from an unpublished study of some 300 children, finding that the proposed definition would exclude very few who currently have a diagnosis of autism or a related disorder.
But meeting attendees got mixed messages on autism. In a talk on Tuesday, Dr. Susan E. Swedo, head of the panel proposing the new definition, said that many people who identify themselves as "aspes," for Asperger's syndrome, "don't actually have Asperger's disorder, much less an autism spectrum disorder." Dr. Swedo is a researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health.
The issue is hardly settled. Findings from published studies are conflicting, but three recent analyses provide support for the Yale estimate, and more papers in the pipeline are also documenting a significant reduction in numbers of those who would qualify under the new criteria. Getting such a diagnosis is critical to obtain state-financed services for children with special needs.
"I certainly hope the D.S.M. task force is right, that the numbers won't change much," said Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, director of the Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine and senior author of the study presented in January. But if the new definition does not change who gets a diagnosis, he asked, "Why mess with it at all?"The D.S.M. panel also made an attempt to clarify the difference between normal sadness and depression, by spelling it out in a footnote added to the proposed depression definition.
The note reads, in part, "The normal and expected response to an event involving significant loss, including feelings of intense sadness, rumination about the loss, insomnia, poor appetite and weight loss, may resemble a depressive episode" but is not necessarily one.
Judging from the past year, the normal and expected response to most of these revisions will be more contentious disagreement that will most likely intensify over the coming weeks.
The psychiatric association send out reminders this week that the current — and final — period for public comment ends on June 15. The final draft of the manual is due at the printer at the end of the year and is scheduled for release in May 2013.
