Nursing Critical Thinking Argumentative Essay

Running head: NURSING CRITICAL THINKING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
NURSING CRITICAL THINKING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY
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NURSING CRITICAL THINKING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY1
Mental disorder is one of the prevalent disorders among the population that is
affecting the behavioural or mental patterns, thus, causing distress or impairment of mental
functioning. Therefore, identification and labelling of mental illness are considered as a
natural part of the help-seeking process (Horsfield et al., 2019). Keeley et al. (2016) opined
that the use of labels in the mental health field is stated to be contentious and is a topic of
debate over the years and is still continuing at every level. The classification system of
mental illness can be traced back to ancient times; however, the scientific classification of
mental disorder was done by Francois Boissier de Sauvages de Lacroix (Coste, 2017). The
system subdivided mental illness into four categories, hallucination, morositates, deliria and
folie Anomales. Much later, Psychiatric diagnostic classification systems were invented,
known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) (Timimi, 2014)
However, various controversies were associated with it. The essay aims to critically analyse
the reason because of which psychiatric diagnostic classification systems should not be used
to determine whether the behaviour is abnormal.
The psychiatric diagnosis classification system has been criticised on the various
ground over the last few decades. The major reasons for such criticism are lack of reliable
data, validity issues. As per the opinion of Johnstone (2018), diagnosis in the psychiatric
system is supported by the idea that it is a branch of medicine where the main cause of
distress is the difficulties of an individual due to improper functioning of the brain. In
addition, medicine is a branch of science that includes reliable describing and grouping of the
basic elements that are governed by laws and theories that have been developed. Thus, it can
be stated that a lack of reliability and validity in drawing up diagnosis or proper classification
system is bound to raise fundamental issues in it. As found in the study of Prakash and Sagar
(2016), it was found that classification of mental health related disorders is stated to be
complex and complicated task and it is more critical in case of the psychiatric diseases. One

NURSING CRITICAL THINKING ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY2
of the issue that was found in this was reliable and valid classification evidence. Different
scientific communities have opined different method of classification however, the most
appropriate or reliable sources cannot be distinguished. The right and wrong behaviour in the
mental health condition cannot be segregated because of the varied signs and symptoms
exhibited by the patients. The domain criteria approaches and the implication of such studies
were found to be highly criticised in nature and thus, studies are being conducted on a
continuous basis for investigating on the possible solution to this issue (Swathi Priya, 2019).
From the integrative viewpoint, DSM- and International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-11
have helped to address the issues related to mental health literacy. It helps and supports all
the stakeholders to understand the critical aspects of the disorders and offers a chance of
understanding the complexity of the research and services associated with psychiatry
(Stephan et al., 2016). Even though, the issue of reliability and validity is prevalent in the
field of psychiatry, however, the age old classification have strong evidence and scientific
basis that allowed to be implemented all over the world (Kapadia et al., 2020). Landi et al.
(2018) opined that there is an issue related to diagnostic validity or clinical utility of the
classification system and the chance of false-positive diagnosis or cases of overtreatment due
to wrong assessment in some of the countries. Another study by Uher and Zwicker (2017)
states that psychiatry has a limited understanding of the causes that led to mental illness and
optimal treatment that can be used. Aksoy and Baskak (2016) opined that the mental health
professional had recognised various pitfalls in the diagnosis and categorisation process and
one of them is validity and reliability. The three processes that are useful in demonstrating the
impact of stigma on diagnosis are groupness, homogeneity and stability. As per the opinion
of Milton and Mullan (2017), various mental illnesses that exhibit similar signs and
symptoms as a result; they are classified into the same; however, the treatment of the diseases
may not be the same. This causes difficulty for the psychiatrist to identify distinguishably