Thursday, January 31, 2013

Health manual changes may turn binge drinkers into alcoholics | Reduction

Health manual changes may turn binge drinkers into alcoholics

Excerpt:

(TIME. com) -- Are you an alcoholic -- or just a problem drinker? It may not matter, according to the latest version of the DSM, psychiatry's diagnostic manual. And now, in a new study of the different levels of alcohol misuse, scientists say the changes made to the DSM-5 may not even represent a significant improvement in the diagnosis of alcoholism. In fact, the revised definition collapses the medical distinction between problem drinking and alcoholism, potentially leading college binge drinkers to be mislabeled as possible lifelong alcoholics. The changes take effect in May, when the DSM-5 will be released. For their research, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, researchers led by Alexis Edwards of Virginia Commonwealth University studied more than 7,000 fraternal and identical twins. They wanted to see if the new diagnostic system would alter alcohol-related diagnoses, compared to the earlier definition.

People:

Alexis Edwards

Overall Sentiment: -0.0791296

Relevance: 0.544903

SentimentQuote
-0.222962"What the analyses suggest is that it isn't clear whether the new criteria represent an improvement. That isn't to say that our results suggest that the DSM-5 criteria are worse than the DSM-4 either, though," says Edwards.
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 1
  • Aggregate Sentiment: -0.222962
  • Mean: -0.222962
  • Standard Deviation: 1.4142135623731

Dr. Allen Frances

Overall Sentiment: -0.0966836

Relevance: 0.310684

SentimentQuote
0.0979225"Although the spectrum/continuum concept is the best way to study alcoholism, it is not the best way to label people who have problems with alcohol," says Dr. Allen Frances, ...
0.0356499"Although the spectrum/continuum concept is the best way to study alcoholism, it is not the best way to label people who have problems with alcohol," says Dr. Allen Frances, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Duke and former chair of the DSM-IV task force that wrote the earlier edition. "The DSM-5 decision to lump beginning drinkers with end-stage alcoholics was driven by researchers who are not sensitive to how the label would play out in young people's lives."
Sentiment Stats:
  • Number of Quotes: 2
  • Aggregate Sentiment: 0.1335724
  • Mean: 0.0667862
  • Standard Deviation: 1.7320508075689

Louise Mewton

Overall Sentiment: 0.204183

Relevance: 0.295698

Key:

  • Aggregate Sentiment is meant to be an indicator of an individual's overall sentiment.
  • The Mean is meant to be an indicator of an individual's average comment sentiment.
  • The Standard Deviation, when there are enough quotes, will indicate an individual's consistency of sentiment (i.e. a Standard Deviation of 0 would mean they were very consistent in their sentiment and 1 would mean they were very inconsistent).

Note that quote stats are likely to be meaningless beyond the aggregate score due to the tiny sample size. However, they are always provided just in case you find something useful there.

Additional Info:

Country: Australia

Overall Sentiment: 0.115391

Relevance: 0.302416

Company: Time Inc

Overall Sentiment: 0

Relevance: 0.392878

Disambiguation: AwardWinner | PeriodicalPublisherReferences:

Organization: Virginia Commonwealth University

Overall Sentiment: 0.10924

Relevance: 0.336388

Organization: University of New South Wales

Overall Sentiment: -0.0105396

Relevance: 0.328145

HealthCondition: alcoholism

Overall Sentiment: -0.0592718

Relevance: 0.757515

HealthCondition: alcohol abuse

Overall Sentiment: 0.36511

Relevance: 0.463996

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