the four D's of diagnosis

Question 1

what are the four Ds of diagnosis?

Answer 1

1) deviant
2) distress
3) dysfunctional
4) danger

Question 2

what are deviant behaviours?

Answer 2

behaviours outside of social and cultural norms that are seen as unacceptable by society
- can also be behaviours that are rare and infrequent that do not typically occur in society
- can be meausred by using statistical and normal distributions

Question 3

what is distress?

Answer 3

negative behaviours and feelings that cause (abnormal) distress to the individual or to thers around them

• based on the patient and their subjective experiences of situations and how they felt
• it can be hard to measure negative behaviour because it is subjective and people who are very distressed are still functional

Question 4

what is dysfuntional behaviour?

Answer 4

behaviours and feelings that interfere with a person’s ability to get on with their day to day activities (e.g, employment, relationships)

• clinicians should discuss with the patient all aspects of their life and then assess if dysfuction is present

Question 5

what is danger?

Answer 5

behaviours and thoughts which could or do bring harm to the individual (e.g, self harm and suicidal thoughts)

• to asses danger, we could use thr GAF score where the clincian gives the patient a score on the scale based on data gathered from interviews and observations

Question 6

what are the strengths of using the 4 D’s?

Answer 6

• helps to avoid errors in diagnosis
• works for professionals = has a practical application, as all features are recognisable + measured without a lot of training + works alongside the DSM system
• ‘deviance’ can use statistical measures to help inform decisions
• [Davis 2009] said that dysfunction can help in making decisions by matching hebaviour and beliefs to the axis of thr DSM

Question 7

what are the weaknesses of using the 4 D’s?

Answer 7

• subjective -> clinicians interpret what patient say during the clinical interview = low reliability as different clinicians may reach different conclusions
• ‘deviance’ increases the chance of misdiagnosis because social norms are changing (e.g homosexuality would have been classed as deviance in thee past)
• ‘distress’ is hard to measure due to being based on the individuals own experience = subjective + unreliable

Question 8

what do cinical psyhologists do?

Answer 8

• they deal with a range of mental and physical health
• they carry out clinical assesments to investigate a client’s situation

Question 9

why could it be difficult to form a diagnosis?

Answer 9

• social norms dictate how people should behave, so that factor impacts how normal or abnormal something really is
• males tend to be more aggressive than females due to biological factors, so nature could be a factor in forming a diagnosis
• poor practitioner training, such as prejudice and bias, could lead to subjective, incorrect diagnoses
• cultures between different groups can make it hard to decide whether something is normal or abnormal because cultures may have different ideas about social norms and beliefs
• using 2 different diagnostic tools poses the risk of 2 different disgnosis, leading to inconsistency and unreliability