4ds of diagnosis

• 4ds of diagnosis

  • deviance
  • dysfunction
  • danger
  • distress
• deviance

  • behaviours and emotions viewed as unacceptable because they are rare (deviates from the norm) - behaviour that occurs rarely in the population is abnormal - could compare behaviour to social norms which are behaviours & attitudes that people stick to in society
• dysfunction

  • abnormal behaviour that interferes with everyday tasks and living in your life - are unable to cope with demands of everyday life such as maintaining relationships with friends, looking after yourself
• danger

  • abnormality can cause danger to self or others e.g: restriction of energy intake leading to low body weight or lack of seriousness of current low body weight
• distress

  • abnormality involves being unhappy which relates to experiencing negative feelings like anxiety, isolation, confusion and fear - abnormality is when these negative feelings occur inappropriately or persist longer than they should
• strength of 4ds as a diagnosis

  • each of them can be aligned with symptoms in the DSM-5 and ICD-10
  • different disorders display combinations of the ds so 4ds can be used together with DSM
  • demonstrates that 4ds are actively involved in diagnosis process in most manuals
• strength

  • 4ds can help prevent erroneous or incorrect diagnoses
  • for example, only using deviance means many behaviour that is rare though harmless to the individual and others may be missed as they affect a large minority of society - using 4ds together helps prevent this
  • 4ds beneficial in identifying behaviours that have a negative impact on a persons well being
• weakness

  • subjectivity using 4ds as diagnosis method
  • what is dysfunctional may differ from person to person. dysfunction could be dependent on cultural values
  • subjectivity can lead to different professionals making different diagnoses so leading to incorrect diagnoses so treatments as well
• weakness

  • labelling can lead to stigmatisation of people with MH issues
  • eg: using danger as a criteria lead to perception that people with MH issues are dangerous - most ppl with SZ are less dangerous than without the diagnosis
  • lead to people not seeking treatment for fear of being unfairly labelled