There is a huge debate surrounding the question as to whether or not the DSM - IV has enough validity and reliability to be able to accurately diagnose OCD.
A weakness of using DSM-IV to diagnose OCD is that it has low test retest reliability. Test retest reliability refers to when the same group of participants are tested under the same conditions after a period of time in order to ascertain whether or not they receive the same diagnosis as they did after their original assessment. In support of this study A study was conducted by Woody et al during which he assessed 54 patients (a good representative sample size with regards to OCD) suffering with OCD using the Y-BOCS scale. In which he found that test retest reliability after 48 days wad lower than desirable. This is this is
…show more content…
There are many reasons that may why test retest is so unreliable. The symptoms of the patients can change during the test retest period, the patients may exaggerate or downplay their symptoms based on their need for help and life events involving stress may affect their symptoms. due to these factors when they come to be reassessed their diagnosis may change. The fact that test retest's on diagnoses are unreliable is a weakness because it shows that diagnoses' are subjective to certain circumstances and that they are not consistent throughout the medical profession. This is a disadvantage as it a huge impact on patients as they may be wrongly diagnosed and given the wrong treatment resulting in their real condition not being