Diagnostic criteria
The understanding and classification of mental disorder is important both for treatment as well as for the purpose of research. In the process, diagnostic criteria finds importance. The term Diagnostic criteria refers to a set of symptoms, signs, and tests that forms guides the evaluation and treatment of individual patients. Diagnostic criteria are generally broad, it must be capable of reflecting different features of a disorder so that they are accurately identified and screened from the population. Although, in an ideal condition, there should be set diagnostic criteria that are validated by research evidence, since psychology is still in it’s formative years, researchers are engaged in the work of developing and validating diagnostic criteria for certain psychological disorders.