Sex of a case history and the DSM-III diagnosis of depression

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Abstract
Selected a brief, written case history of Major Depression, without melancholia, single episode from the DSM‐III Case Book (Spitzer, Skodol, Gibbon, & Williams, 1981) and mailed to 369 male psychiatrists and male psychologists in the Midwest. One‐half of the clinicians were sent the psychiatric case in its true form, a depressed male, and the other half were sent the case in an altered form, a depressed female. A 32% return resulted in 90 usable diagnoses. The results found no significant differences between psychiatrists and psychologists in diagnosis. The sex of the case did not affect significantly the agreement of diagnosis with the Case Book, the difficulty of the case, or the ratings of stressors or adaptive level of functioning. Sex of the case had no effect on the suggested length of treatment or the recommendation of drug treatment. It was found that clinicans agreed with the Case Book on the major diagnosis. However, the clinicians were not in agreement with the Case Book on the subcategory or the five‐digit subtype. Results are discussed in terms of the effect of sex of the client on diagnosis and the new DSM‐III Case Book and classification system.

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