Psychiatric nosology

Psychiatric nosology is the branch of medicine concerned with the classification and description of psychiatric disorders.

The standard system of classification now employed in much of clinical practice and research in the United States and throughout the world is the updated version of the early manual devised by the American Psychiatric Association and now published under the title Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (1952; 1968; 1980; 1987; 1994). The latest version, DSM-IV is said to be "fully compatible with… ICD-10" (American Psychiatric Association, 1994, p. xxi), which is the International Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems published by the World Health Organization.