2023/09/04 by Miriam K. Forbes, Bryan Neo, Omid Mohamad Nezami +5 · 1 voice · 6 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · #Mental Health Research Topics #Mental Health and Psychiatry #Personality Disorders and Psychopathology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0033291723002544
openalex publication_date 2023/09/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract Background The DSM-5 features hundreds of diagnoses comprising a multitude of symptoms, and there is considerable repetition in the symptoms among diagnoses. This repetition undermines what we can learn from studying individual diagnostic constructs because it can obscure both disorder- and symptom-specific signals. However, these lost opportunities are currently veiled because symptom repetition in the DSM-5 has not been quantified. Method This descriptive study mapped the repetition among the 1419 symptoms described in 202 diagnoses of adult psychopathology in section II of the DSM-5 . Over a million possible symptom comparisons needed to be conducted, for which we used both qualitative content coding and natural language processing. Results In total, we identified 628 distinct symptoms: 397 symptoms (63.2%) were unique to a single diagnosis, whereas 231 symptoms (36.8%) repeated across multiple diagnoses a total of 1022 times (median 3 times per symptom; range 2–22). Some chapters had more repetition than others: For example, every symptom of every diagnosis in the bipolar and related disorders chapter was repeated in other chapters, but there was no repetition for any symptoms of any diagnoses in the elimination disorders , gender dysphoria or paraphilic disorders . The most frequently repeated symptoms included insomnia, difficulty concentrating, and irritability – listed in 22, 17 and 16 diagnoses, respectively. Notably, the top 15 most frequently repeating diagnostic criteria were dominated by symptoms of major depressive disorder. Conclusion Overall, our findings lay the foundation for a better understanding of the extent and potential consequences of symptom overlap.