Clinicians' judgments of clinical utility: a comparison of the DSM-IV and five-factor models.
Clinical utility, or the usefulness of a diagnostic system in clinical practice, has been identified as an important construct in proposed revisions to the diagnostic nomenclature and a significant limitation of dimensional models of personality disorder, such as the 5-factor model (FFM). Only 1 study to date has addressed explicitly the clinical utility of the FFM, and the findings suggested significant limitations. In the current study, 245 practicing psychologists described 3 historic cases using both the FFM and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.; DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and then rated each model on 6 aspects of clinical utility. In contrast to prior research, the psychologists in this study considered the FFM to have greater clinical utility than the existing diagnostic categories.
Samuel
Douglas B
DB
Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA. dsamuel@uky.edu
Widiger
Thomas A
TA
D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D009626:Terminology as Topic