[Reliability of the psychiatric section in the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases].

In collaboration with WHO the authors participated in sessions on the reliability of the Vth chapter of mental disease of the 10th revision of the International Classification of Diseases. The object was to evaluate the comprehensibility and utility of the diagnosis of mental disorders, evaluate to what extent the new classification describes adequately disorders of different types of psychiatric patients and to provide information on the extent and type of diagnostic agreement and disagreement. The evaluation was done by four psychiatrists; a total of 38 written case-histories were evaluated (30 patients of the Psychiatric Research Institute and 8 case-histories from other centres). Diagnostic agreement according to Kappa was very good, best in organic mental disorders and schizophrenic disorders, approximately equal in affective and neurotic disorders. It was lowest in personality disorders. The investigation indicates diagnostic agreement practically equal to that in ICD-9. More reliable data will be obtained after summarization of the entire WHO investigation which was implemented in various departments in the world.