title: Diagnostic discrepancy in personal accounts of patients with 'schizophrenia'.
abstract: Five published accounts of patients with "schizophrenia" were reviewed in the light of the DSM-III diagnostic criteria. None of the accounts unequivocally met the DSM-III criteria for schizophrenia, but all did meet the criteria for some other psychiatric condition, especially affective disorders. The survey results suggest that popular accounts of "schizophrenia" present a confusing picture of schizophrenia. Inasmuch as these accounts often are invoked to support "cures," the reading pubic is doubly misled, as when a naturally remitting condition such as depression is mistakenly called schizophrenia. The psychiatric profession has a responsibility to clarify diagnostic misconceptions put forth in popular literature, and DSM-III might provide more objective guidelines for this much-needed clarification.
mesh_terms: D000341:Affective Disorders, Psychotic / Q000175:diagnosis; D001714:Bipolar Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis; D003951:Diagnostic Errors; D006801:Humans; D008093:Literature, Modern; D008370:Manuals as Topic; D008513:Medicine in Literature; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis*; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis