Classification and the British Glossary of Mental Disorders: Some Experience of its Use

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Abstract
A Glossary of Mental Disorderswas published in 1968, prepared by the Registrar-General's Advisory Committee on Medical Nomenclature and Statistics. The document used as a basis the Eighth Edition of the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases (I.C.D.), Section V, which deals with mental disorders and mental subnormality. For the first time in this country the meaning of the categories listed in the I.D.C. are described, and the new Glossary stands beside the Second Edition of the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (D.S.M. II) which was also published in 1968. The psychiatrists working on the United States-United Kingdom Diagnostic Project at the Institute of Psychiatry, Maudsley Hospital, London, and the Psychiatric Institute, New York, made diagnoses according to the new Glossary descriptions on 820 hospital in-patients drawn from both sides of the Atlantic and interviewed using a standardized interview. The comments contained in this article are based on their experience.