To what extent do psychiatric diagnostic constructs meet criteria of scientific validity? Discuss with reference to issues of reliability, validity and replicability.

To what extent do psychiatric diagnostic constructs meet criteria of scientific validity? Discuss with reference to issues of reliability, validity and replicability.

Introduction

The study relates to validity of psychiatric diagnosis, which particularly focuses on the extent of psychiatric diagnostic constructs in meeting criteria of scientific validity. In this context, reliability and validity are the two key aspects which are important to the development of modern psychiatric diagnosis. Validity is a complex term as it varies based on the context; moreover, it refers to inspecting the approximate fallacy or truth of scientific results. With reference to applying the measuring instruments, it refers to how well the instrument assesses what it implies to assess. In addition to this, when applied to a mental disorders, such as schizophrenia and ADHD, validity refers to the evidence that mental breakdown is the cause of schizophrenia and ADHD. In a psychiatric illness, the patient comes with a subjective complaint that include hyperactivity, difficulty in controlling behaviour and difficulty in paying attention and staying focused. Besides it, reliability indicates the degree to which a test or experiment provide the identical results on repeated trials.

In 20th century, the majority of mental health clinicians and psychiatrists were not interested in making diagnoses, generally because of the prominence and importance on the approach of psychoanalysis. Moreover, in 19th century, clinicians started to label mental psychiatric disorders as certain diagnostic issues. In the mean time, psychiatry started to take on the medical model in which it is assumed that a disorder, a syndrome and a disease has three elements which entail the pathological process, an etiological agent and signs and symptoms. The pathology, etiology and also the cure of mental disorder, syndrome or disease may be unknown or known. For that reason, the objective of this study is to learn about the new concepts on the psychiatric diagnosis pertaining to its validity with reference to issues of reliability, validity and replicability, as it can help in gaining knowledge about the scientific validity of psychiatric diagnosis.

Discussion

In order to understand the psychiatric diagnostic constructs which meet the criteria of scientific validity, it is important to note that there is no consistency in terms of validity and replicability in the diagnosis of ADHD and schizophrenia disorder as the content validity presents the extent to which the scientific assessment indicates a certain area of content. In relation to this, the arithmetical operations test will be based content validity if it entails subtraction, multiplication, division and addition. In psychiatry and medicine, clinicians have the same opinion on vital aspects that make up a disorder, a syndrome or a disease.

Psychiatrists agree that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has five major features which include oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, bipolar disorder, anxiety and depression and a learning disability. In the similar way, psychiatrists have the same opinion that a patient with schizophrenia has hallucinations, movement disorders, disorganization, delusions ...