Age and Gender Considerations in Psychiatric Diagnosis: A Research Agenda for the DSM-V (repost)

Written to help identify major gaps in our knowledge of how gender and age affect psychiatric diagnoses and to stimulate much-needed research to fill these gaps, Age and Gender Considerations in Psychiatric Diagnosis serves as both a valuable short-term source for the DSM-V Task Force and its disorder-specific workgroups, and a long-term guide for future studies that will contribute to revised psychiatric classifications in these areas. Here, 47 experts present findings in three previously neglected areas of psychiatric research: significant gender differences in prevalence, symptom profiles, and risk factors for mental disorders, including neurodevelopmental, neurophysiological, and environmental factors that cut across diagnostic categories; mental disorders in infancy and early childhood, including psychopathology, PTSD, reactive attachment disorder, autism, and mood, anxiety, sleep, feeding, and behavior disorders; and mental disorders in the elderly (e.g., dementia and depression) once considered normal consequences of aging, but today understood as mental disorders and thus worthy of further investigation. Written for clinicians and researchers alike, this thought-provoking compendium contributes critical information that helps enhance our understanding of the causes of mental disorders, develop effective preventive and treatment interventions, and inform future editions of DSM and the ICD.