DSM III in outreach emergency psychiatry

As making a diagnosis in emergency psychiatry is often difficult, whether the systematic use of a diagnostic classification is worthwhile can be questioned. In the psychiatric emergency service in the Hague, The Netherlands, the use of a DSM III classification list was evaluated by comparing emergency service diagnoses during subsequent psychiatric treatments in 237 out of 300 consecutive contacts. For Organic Mental Disorders, Psychoactive Substance Use Disorders, Schizophrenia and Mood Disorders, the Kappa coefficient of agreement was found to lie between 0.5 and 0.6. The application of DSM III categories is considered to be suited to diagnostic classification in outreach emergency psychiatry.