How interested in classification are British and American psychiatrists and how have they chosen to study it over the last 50 years

Aims and Methods: The general conceptual issues involved in psychiatric classifi cation seem to be increasingly neglected in contrast to a focus on specifi c and empirical aspects which appear to have come to dominate the study of classifi cation in the fi eld. This article explores how the psychiatric fi eld (in the UK and US) has chosen to analyse classifi cation over time. Publication trends of articles in both The American Journal of Psychiatry and The British Journal of Psychiatry over a fi fty year period (1960-2010) can be viewed as indicators of the levels of interest within the psychiatric fi eld toward classifi cation. In an exploratory analysis, articles explicitly focusing on classifi cation were counted and further sub-divided according to whether they focused on empirical or conceptual aspects and whether they adopted a general perspective or focused on a more specifi c aspect of classifi cation. Results: Interest in classifi cation was apparent in a minority of published articles (4.7% of all published articles). Interest in conceptual aspects dropped throughout the fi fty years and was found to be considerably less than for empirical approaches which steadily increased over time. General papers about classifi cation have been gradually on the decline and have been increasingly outnumbered by more specifi cally-focused articles. Clinical Implication: Classifi cation, as a foundational endeavour within the psychiatric fi eld, requires increased attention in the literature. This literature should address conceptual as well as empirical issues.