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IPDE - Extranet Systems - World Health Organization

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35 Epidemiology of DSM-Ill PDs<br />

were the most frequent and cluster A patients the least." There was<br />

highly significant demographic variation manifest across PD clusters. In<br />

the only study which investigated PD rates among those seen in a private<br />

psychiatric practice (N = 486). they were diagnosed in 39% of the<br />

patients seen.'= Borderline (9.7%) and obsessive-compulsive (8.2%)<br />

were the most frequently observed.<br />

Some studies have compared the hospital admission rates for PD over<br />

time, and they allow us to assess the impact of diagnostic changes.<br />

Mors36 has shown that in Denmark sex- and age-standardized rates of<br />

first-admitted borderlines significantly increased during the 16-year<br />

interval 197&85. There was no sex difference, but the age group 15-34<br />

especially contributed to the increase, which was particularly remarkable<br />

in urban areas, and might be explained in terms of a change in diagnostic<br />

habits. This hypothesis received support from another analysis of Danish<br />

admissions to psychiatric institutions in the years 1975. 1980, and 1985.<br />

In those years the increase in borderline diagnosis (5% to 20%) in men<br />

paralleled a decrease in the diagnosis of psychopathy (22% to 7%):' The<br />

authors suggest that those previously diagnosed as psychopathic<br />

deviants were subsequently labelled borderlines. The shift in diagnosis<br />

was less marked for females.<br />

This same phenomenon, i.e., a change in diagnostic practice has been<br />

studied at one of the largest university-affiliated psychiatric hospitals<br />

in the USAJ8 Comparing the diagnoses given to hospitalized patients in<br />

the last five years of the DSM-II era (N = 5143) with those given in the<br />

first five years of the DSM-I11 era (N = 5771). a marked increase was<br />

found in the diagnosis of PD, together with a decrease in the diagnosis of<br />

schizophrenia, and a corresponding increase in the diagnosis of affective<br />

disorders. The percentage of patients with a diagnosis of PD (19.1% to<br />

49.2%) increased more than twofold. The most frequent diagnostic<br />

categories employed since the introduction of the DSM-111 were<br />

atypicaUmixedlother PD (33%) and borderline (27%). Another study<br />

assessed the proportion of patients with PD among all hospitalized<br />

cases of non-psychotic mental disorders in military personnel in the US<br />

Navy from 1981-1984.39 The overall sample included 27,210 cases.<br />

Among them, 4581 (16.8%) had a PD as the primary diagnosis. In<br />

New Zealand a survey was made of all patients admitted to psychiatric<br />

hospitals over a seven year period with an ICD-9 primary diagnosis of<br />

personality disorders (N = 6447).40 Despite a decrease in the total number<br />

of admissions, the relative totals for each personality disorder<br />

remained consistent. The most common diagnosis was an unspecified

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