DSM 5 and child psychiatric disorders: what is new? What has changed?

The significant changes in DSM 5 as these relate to a number of the child psychiatric disorders are reviewed by several authors in this special issue: In this paper we address some of the changes in the conceptual organisation of DSM 5 and specifically focus on anxiety and related disorders. In the case of child and adolescent psychiatry, the most notable feature is that the chapter on Disorders Usually First Diagnosed in infancy, Childhood or Adolescence has been deleted. Instead, a new chapter in DSM 5 describes Neurodevelopmental Disorders which typically manifest early in development. Further, an expectation had been built that DSM would be based on the latest data in neuroscience and that a clear direction towards a mixed dimensional and categorical approach would be evident. This has been the case with some disorders and a notable example is the removal of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) from the Anxiety Disorder chapter and placement with other related disorders that share similar neurobiology and treatment response. In this regard, the addition in DSM 5 of a new specifier "tic-related" to OCD is worth noting as there is emerging evidence that differential treatment response exists when tics are associated with OCD. The same situation applies to tics with ADHD, thus presenting the argument for a dimensional approach to Tic Spectrum Disorder (TSD) incorporating categories such as those with tics only, tics with OCD, tics with ADHD etc. to be given due consideration in the future. Another important change that clinicians in the field of child psychiatry will no doubt notice is the demise of the multiaxial classification. Instead, DSM 5 has moved back to a nonaxial documentation of diagnosis with separate notations for important psychosocial and contextual factors as well as level of functioning and disability. Clinicians are urged, however, to continue to recognise the need to understand how symptoms and behaviours might have arisen and assess relevant contextual factors such as the family relationships, quality of care, any history of abuse, and so on. Further, the move to harmonise DSM 5 with the structure of ICD 11 (scheduled for release in 2015) should make understanding and familiarising oneself with the two major classificatory systems easier in the future.