Intended for healthcare professionals

Rapid response to:

Editorials

Renaming schizophrenia

BMJ 2007; 334 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39057.662373.80 (Published 18 January 2007) Cite this as: BMJ 2007;334:108

Rapid Response:

This is related to stigma

The media article cited goes on to prove that the way we perceive
Psychiatry has not changed. Labels or diagnosis in Psychiatry is
inherently stigmatizing and people would prefer to shy away from such a
diagnosis.

Considering the current controversies regarding the biological basis
of the illness, it would be unwise to change the label to something which
we are even more unsure of.

We must always bear in mind that most psychiatry illness are
diagnosed on the basis of symptom clusters rather than a fundamental
biological change. With this view do we still want to change the name of
an illness?

Competing interests:
None declared

Competing interests: No competing interests

25 January 2007
Vivek Furtado
Senior House Officer
Leeds Mental Health Trust