Principal and Additional DSM-IV Disorders for Which Outpatients Seek Treatment

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Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Epidemiological studies indicate that most patients in the community do not get treatment for psychiatric disorders. It is unknown whether persons who present for outpatient psychiatric services seek treatment for all the disorders they have or only for the principal disorder for which they are seeking treatment. The goal of this study was to determine which axis I psychiatric disorders motivate patients to seek treatment. METHODS: Four hundred outpatients at a hospital-affiliated, community-based, psychiatric clinical practice were interviewed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID). For patients with more than one disorder, the diagnoses were assigned as principal or additional according to the DSM-IV convention of whether it was the patient's stated primary reason for presenting for treatment or was an additional disorder. For all current disorders, patients were asked whether the symptoms of each diagnosed disorder were a reason, or one of the reasons, for seeking treatment...