Psychiatric Diagnosis and Classification - ResearchGate

CLINICAL ASSESSMENT INSTRUMENTS IN PSYCHIATRY 181
individual criteria that are required for a diagnosis. In particular, they do
not include any questions for assessing the signs and symptoms that have to
be present for a criterion to be positive.
The Lists of Integrated Criteria for the Evaluation of
Taxonomy LICET-S and LICET-D)
The Lists of Integrated Criteria for the Evaluation of Taxonomy or LICET are
polydiagnostic checklists of criteria, one for schizophrenia and other nonaffective
psychoses LICET-S), the other for depressive disorders LICET-D)
[10]. LICET-S assembles all the criteria required in 12 diagnostic systems for a
diagnosis of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. LICET-D reproduces
all the criteria required in 9 diagnostic systems for a diagnosis of a
number of subtypes of depressive disorder. At the end of a comprehensive
examination, and using all relevant additional information that may be
available, clinicians are invited to check the presence or absence of 78
LICET-S) or 100 LICET-D) criteria. The results are analyzed by hand, by
following the flow charts corresponding to each of the systems included in
the lists, or by using a simple computer program.
The lists were used in two nationwide investigations. The aim of the
first survey was to elucidate the criteria used by French psychiatrists for
a diagnosis of schizophrenia, as well as for other psychotic disorders that
they considered to be different from schizophrenia, i.e. several types of acute
and transitory psychotic disorders such as ``bouffeÂedeÂlirante'', and different
types of chronic psychotic disorders, such as chronic hallucinatory psychosis
[11]. The results led to definitions based on explicit criteria for a number of
French diagnostic categories. The definitions proved extremely useful to
explain traditional French diagnostic practices to psychiatrists outside of
France. In addition, the definitions allowed French psychiatrists to understand
the ways in which they differed from non-French clinicians, which in
turn proved very helpful in paving the way for the acceptance of international
diagnostic systems in France.
The second survey [12] was intended to elucidate French diagnostic
practices in the field of depression. The results of the study led to a proposal
of explicit diagnostic criteria for ``depression'' and for differentiating between
``psychotic'' and ``non-psychotic'' depression.
Operational Criteria Checklist OPCRIT)
The Operational Criteria Checklist or OPCRIT is a checklist of criteria for
affective and psychotic disorders [13]. It is a polydiagnostic instrument that