Diagnosis of adjustment disorder: reliability of its clinical use and long-term stability

Adjustment disorder is a common diagnosis in mental health services. However, the diagnostic reliability and stability of this nosological construct are unclear.

Clinical chart records of patients who had been discharged with a clinical diagnosis of adjustment disorder were re-evaluated by two independent raters using ICD-10 criteria. On the basis of the chart material, the frequency of readmissions and diagnostic changes were recorded.

Of 142 patients with a clinical diagnosis of adjustment disorder, only 91 (64.1%) retrospectively met ICD-10 criteria for this diagnosis. Eighteen of these 91 patients (19.8%) were readmitted to a mental health hospital within a 5-year period and 9 (9.9%) showed a diagnostic change at readmission, 5 of them to substance use disorders (5.5%).

The dramatic divergence between the clinical diagnosis and ICD-10 criteria challenges the validity and usefulness of the current nosological concept of adjustment disorder.