WPA partnership with the World Health Organization in the development of the ICD‐11 chapter on mental disorders

The development of the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is ongoing, and the diagnostic system is expected to be published in the year 2015. The WPA is supporting the World Health Organization (WHO) in the production of the chapter on mental disorders. The WPA Past-President, M. Maj, is a member of the International Advisory Group for the ICD-10 revision and the chairperson of the Working Group on Mood and Anxiety Disorders. Several WPA officers or experts have been appointed as chairpersons or members of ICD-11 Working Groups. The chairpersons include W. Gaebel (Working Group on Psychotic Disorders), P. Tyrer (Working Group on Personality Disorders), L. Salvador-Carulla (Working Group on Intellectual Disabilities), O. Gureje (Working Group on Somatic Distress and Dissociative Disorders), and D. Stein (Working Group on Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders). The WPA Member Societies participated in the WPA-WHO Global Survey of Psychiatrists' Attitudes Towards Mental Disorders Classification 1. This survey collected information from 4887 psychiatrists concerning their regular use of a formal classification system, the classification system most used, and the number of diagnostic categories desired, and their views on the most important purposes of classification, the use of strict criteria versus flexible guidance, how to incorporate severity and functional status in a classification of mental disorders, the utility of a dimensional component, the cultural applicability of current classifications, and the ease of use and the goodness of fit of ICD-10 diagnostic categories. The results of this survey are being used to improve the clinical utility of the ICD-11 chapter on mental disorders. Several WPA Member Societies and experts are being or will be involved in ICD-11 field trials and in the various translations/adaptations of the diagnostic system. The WPA is actively contributing to the process of harmonization between the ICD-11 and the DSM-5. Within the frame of the 15th World Congress of Psychiatry, held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in September 2011, several sessions related to the ICD-11 development took place, including a Special Symposium entitled “Developing the ICD-11 classification of mental disorders: field studies and global perspectives”, with the participation of G. Reed, the WHO officer in charge of the process. World Psychiatry is one of the main channels through which the international psychiatric community is being updated about the ICD-11 development. A special article authored by the ICD-11 International Advisory Group, summarizing the philosophy of the entire process, has been published in the journal 2, as well as the first report of the Working Group on Intellectual Disabilities 3 and a review of evidence and proposals for the ICD-11 classification of feeding and eating disorders 4. Several papers produced by the Working Group on Mood and Anxiety Disorders have been collected in a special supplement to the journal 5. Many relevant contributions have appeared in recent issues of the journal 6–25. All the above articles are available on the WPA website (http://www.wpanet.org).