DSM5 FT RCP Protocol 03-19-11 Revlc
DSM5 FT RCP Protocol 03-19-11 Revlc
I. Objectives:
The DSM-5 Field Trials in Routine Clinical Practice settings will focus primarily on: 1) the feasibility
and clinical utility of the proposed modifications to the diagnostic criteria for a broad range of
disorders, and 2) the feasibility and clinical utility of the cross-cutting and diagnostic-specific
dimensional measures that are incorporated into the diagnostic scheme for DSM-5. In addition, these
field trials will examine the ability of these cross-cutting and diagnostic-specific severity dimensional
measures to capture changes in patients’ symptom levels over time. More specifically, the DSM-5
Field Trials in the Routine Clinical Practice settings will seek to answer the following questions:
Diagnostic Criteria
a. Are the proposed diagnostic criteria easy to understand and use by the clinician?
b. Do clinicians find that the proposed diagnostic criteria accurately reflect or capture their
patients’ symptom presentations?
c. Are the proposed diagnostic criteria useful/helpful to the clinicians in planning treatments for
patients?
II. Methodology:
Design: The study will be primarily cross-sectional in nature but will incorporate one longitudinal
component involving a follow-up visit at 4 to 12 weeks after the baseline evaluation. The 4-to-12 week
follow-up visit will be used to assess the ability of the cross-cutting dimensional and the
diagnostic-specific severity measures to capture changes in patients’ symptomatology over time (i.e.,
scales’ responsiveness to change).
Sampling of clinicians: The field trials in the Routine Clinical Practice settings will involve a
representative sample of psychiatrists who will be randomly selected from the American Medical
Association (AMA) Masterfile of Physicians and a volunteer sample of clinicians including
psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, marriage and family therapists, and advanced
practice psychiatric-mental health nurses (see Figure 1).
2. Volunteer Sample of Clinicians: The volunteer sample of clinicians will consist of 3,500 clinicians
including 1,000 psychiatrists, 500 psychologists, 500 licensed clinical social workers, 500 licensed
counselors, 500 licensed marriage and family therapists, and 500 advanced practice
psychiatric-mental health nurses. The volunteer sample of psychiatrists will be recruited via
announcements on the www.dsm5.org Web site, in APA publications and newsletters, and at APA
meetings. Similar methods will be used to recruit clinicians in the other disciplines. If a volunteer
clinician is also randomly selected, he/she will be included in the randomly selected group.
Each participating clinician will be recognized in DSM-5 as a contributor and will receive CME credits
for completion of the DSM-5 training session. Additional incentives may be offered to clinicians in
the randomly selected samples to achieve a high level of participation.
Sampling frame exclusions: The sampling frame from the AMA Masterfile of Physicians will
exclude:
members of the DSM-5 Task Force and Work Groups,
advisors to the DSM-5 process,
clinicians who worked in any of the large DSM-5 Field Trial sites, and
clinicians who participate in any of the DSM-5 pilot or procedural studies.
Clinicians who are members of the DSM-5 Task Force and Work Groups and advisors to the DSM-5
process are excluded from the sampling frame to reduce the chance of real or perceived bias in the
results because of their vested interest in the proposed diagnostic criteria and dimensional measures
being shown to be feasible and clinically useful. As well, clinicians who work in any of the large
DSM-5 Field Trial sites or pilot studies will be excluded from the sampling frame for these field trials
to reduce the chance of double counting and giving such clinicians a greater probability of being
included.
Sampling of patients: Each participating clinician (i.e., randomly selected and volunteer clinicians) will
enroll 1 existing patient and 1 new patient into the field trial within a 3-month period after completion
of the DSM-5 Training session. These patients will be systematically selected using an established
strategy used by members of the APA’s Practice Research Network (PRN) to select representative
samples of patients in previous studies (see Figure 1).
III. Procedures:
Clinician Training: All clinicians who agree to participate in field trials will be asked to complete a
DSM-5 Training Session. The training session will be conducted via webinar and will focus on the
major changes in the DSM-5 including new disorders, new diagnostic criteria, and the cross-cutting
dimensional and diagnostic-specific severity measures, and the methods that will help each
participating clinician to integrate them into his or her clinical practice for the study. The training
session will incorporate Human Subjects Training to ensure that each participating clinician is certified
to obtained consent from his/her patient. In addition, participants will be oriented to the electronic data
collection system, including diagnostic checklists, which will be used in DSM-5 Field Trials.
Each participating clinician is required to complete the DSM-5 training session before the clinician is
allowed to enroll his/her patients in the study, and patient enrollment must occur within three months
following completion of the training session.
Patient informed consent: The process for consenting new and existing patients will be the same but
will occur at different points in time during the study.
1. For new patients, the consenting process will occur during the baseline visit before the patient has
completed the self-rated level 1 and indicated level 2 measures and before the start of the clinical
interview (see Figure 2). If the new patient consents to participate in the study, he/she will be
enrolled and the clinician will proceed with the baseline study visit clinical interview and
assessments. However, if the new patient does not agree to participate in the study, the clinician
will be asked to log the reason for refusal as well as basic non-identifying information (e.g., age,
sex, primary diagnosis, and whether or not co-morbid mental health conditions exists).
2. For existing patients, the consenting process will occur at the end of the systematically selected
patient’s routine office visit (see Figure 2). If the existing patient consents to participate in the
study, his/her baseline study visit will be scheduled no later than one month following the consent
visit. If the existing patient does not agree to participate in the study, the clinician will be asked to
log the reason for refusal as well as basic non-identifying information (e.g., age, sex, primary
diagnosis, and whether or not co-morbid mental health conditions exists).
Assessment measures: All assessment tools that will be utilized in this study (i.e., patient- and
clinician-rated forms) will be available only in electronic forms. These assessment tools will include
the cross-cutting dimensional measures, the DSM-5 diagnostic checklist, the list of diagnostic-specific
severity measures, and the Clinical Utility Questionnaire. The feasibility of these assessment methods
will be pilot tested prior to the start of the Field Trials.
Patient assessment: Each participating clinician will see each of his or her enrolled patients for two
study visits. This will include a baseline study visit and a follow-up visit 4-12 weeks later. Below,
the steps for each visit are outlined and illustrated in Figures 2 and 3:
1. At the baseline study visit, the selected new patient and existing patient who provided written
consent will be asked to complete the self-rated level 1 and indicated level 2 cross-cutting measures
before seeing his/her clinician.
2. Before the start of the clinical interview for each new patient, the clinician will inform the patient
about the DSM-5 Field Trial (i.e., what is involved, the risks and benefits, etc.) and then ask him/her
if he/she is interested in participating. The new patient will be informed that his/her assessment
and treatment will not be affected if he/she does not agree to participate in the field trial study.
a. If a new patient does not agree to participate in the field trial, the clinician will be asked to log
basic information (e.g., age, sex, primary and comorbid diagnoses, and reason for refusal if available)
and the new patient’s assessment and treatment will otherwise continue as usual for the clinician.
3. The patient must be seen for a follow-up study visit 4 to 12 weeks after the first study visit. This
does not preclude the scheduling of any clinically-indicated visits prior to the 4-12 week follow-up
study visit.
4. After the patient visit, the clinician will complete the Clinical Utility Questionnaire.
1. At the 4-12 week follow-up study visit, the enrolled patient will again complete the self-rated level
1 and indicated level 2 cross-cutting measures before being seen by the clinician.
3. Following the end of the 4-12 week follow-up visit, the clinician will complete the Clinical Utility
Questionnaire.
The analytic strategy will be presented on a broad category basis. All analyses will be conducted using
SAS statistical software (see Table 1). In addition, SAS macro (%QLS) will be used to conduct the
quasi-least squares (QLS) computational approach for estimation of the correlation parameter in GEE
analyses for data with multiple sources of correlation.
1. Feasibility: Feasibility will be assessed by examination of clinician and patient participation rates
and reasons for refusal. As well, the overall and item response rates for the patients’ self-rated
level 1 and level 2 cross-cutting measures as well as the clinician-rated level 2 cross-cutting and
diagnostic specific measures will be examined as indicators of feasibility for the incorporation of the
measures into the diagnostic scheme for DSM-5. In particular, analysis will be primarily
descriptive, e.g., frequency distributions and measures of central tendency (means and their
associated standard deviations, modes and median) with some comparisons based on clinicians’ and
patients’ characteristics. The results will be used to further refine the content of the assessment
battery. In addition, descriptive analyses will be conducted on clinicians’ reports on the ease of use
and understanding of the diagnostic criteria and associated checklist, the diagnostic-specific severity
measures, and the cross-cutting dimensional measures.
2. Clinical Utility: Descriptive statistics will be used to describe the range of subjective and objective
responses obtained in the clinical utility component of the study. In addition, common themes will
be identified in the open-ended responses and reported. The results of the subjective and objective
reports will be compared using appropriate descriptive and multivariate analyses controlling for
clinicians’ characteristics such as age, sex, specialty, and years in practice.
The degree to which participants’ ratings of change in severity of symptoms is related to clinicians'
ratings of change in severity for the same symptoms is important in determining the potential utility of
these patient-rated measures in routine clinical practice. This will be examined using linear regression
within a generalized estimating equations (GEE) framework. However, a QLS computational approach
for estimation of the correlation parameter will be used, instead of the conventional approach in GEE
analyses, given its advantage in handling data with multiple sources of correlation as would be
involved with these data (i.e., correlation involved in repeated patient assessment, in repeated clinician
assessment, and the impact of clinicians’ knowledge of patients’ self-rating of symptom severity prior
to their assessment of patients’ symptom severity).
These field trials will enable the examination of the distribution of psychiatric diagnoses across
Routine Clinical Practice settings in the U.S. The samples of 1,400 randomly selected and 3,500
volunteer practicing clinicians will each provide greater than 80% power to detect disorders with
prevalence estimate of 0.1 to 0.8 with a confidence interval of 95% separately for the 2 groups. Using
clinically significant change in severity of depression as an example [using 5-point change on the
PHQ-9 as an established indicator of clinically significant change (35)], a sample size of 15 patients
per disorder is needed to allow us to have sufficient power (beta = 0.20) to detect clinically significant
disorder-specific changes in severity even with adjustments for age and sex. Power Analysis and
Sample Size software was used to determine the sample size and power.
Knowledge translation will occur throughout the project. This will include using the information to
inform revision of the diagnostic criteria for the disorders relevant to this study. In addition, the
results will be shared with relevant professional and consumer groups for their feedback so as to
inform the DSM-5 process. Dissemination of the results of the study will also occur at local, national,
and international scientific meetings by members of the research team. Reports on the results of this
study will also be disseminated in the form of publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals as well
as the DSM-5 source books.
Enrollment of EPs:
After completing the DSM-5Training Session, which will incorporate
Enrollment of NPs: the Human Subjects Training, and returning the completed training
After completing the DSM-5 Training questionnaire, a start date for a clinician will be set. The timing of
Session, which will incorporate the selection of EPs will be randomly assigned. For example, a clinician
Human Subjects Training, and returning might be asked to enroll the fifth EP seen for a routine visit on a
the training questionnaire, a start date for a specific date if the EP’s next clinically-indicated follow-up visit will
clinician will be set. The clinician will be occur anytime within a month. However, another clinician might be
asked to enroll the next new patient seen asked to enroll the second patient seen for a routine visit on a specific
within the next 2 months from the start date if the EP’s next clinically-indicated follow-up visit will occur
date. The start date will be randomly anytime within a month. The clinician will complete the consent
determined but will occur within 3 months process during the initial routine visit but initiate the baseline study
of completion of the DSM-5 training. The visit at the next clinically-indicated visit. This allows the clinician to
clinician will seek the NP’s consent at the inform the patient of the additional time that will be needed for the
time of his/her first clinic visit. return visit, in which the clinician will incorporate the DSM-5
diagnostic criteria and cross-cutting and diagnostic-specific measures.
Follow-up visit at 4-12 weeks after baseline (see Figure 2b for an outline of this visit):
Procedure:
Patient completes the cross-cutting dimensional measures (Level 1 and any indicated Level 2 Measures).
Patient sees the clinician for the 4-12 week clinical evaluation – this will include review of the diagnosis assigned at baseline
and the completion of the indicated diagnostic-specific severity measures and use of the results of the patient-completed
dimensional measures; make treatment plan.
Clinician completes the Clinical Utility Questionnaire.
During the EP’s Existing Patient (EP) sees his/her clinician for a routine
routine visit that is office visit. At the end of the visit, clinician informs EP of
the study & seeks his/her consent to participate.
selected for his/her
recruitment
EP does not consent to participate EP consents to participate &
& baseline visit not scheduled. baseline visit scheduled†.
Prior to the
Clinical Interview
Patient completes self-rated L1 cross-cutting (CC) measures for:
Depression*Anxiety*Somatic Symptoms* Substance Use*Psychosis*Anger*Mania*Personality
Functioning*Obsessive-Compulsivity*Suicide Risk*Sleep/Wake Problems*Memory Problems
During the
Clinical Interview
As part of the clinical interview, the clinician MUST follow the ensuing steps:
During the
Clinical Interview
If necessary, address any concerns or distress that may arise during the assessment and ensure the
patient’s safety before ending the visit. Schedule the patient’s 4-12 week follow-up study visit‡.
After the
Clinical Interview
Clinician completes the Clinical Utility Questionnaire. Patient completes the evaluation of CC measures.
Prior to the
Clinical
Interview New Patient (NP) Existing Patient (EP)
Each NP/EP sees his/her clinician who conducts the clinical interview.
As part of the clinical interview, the clinician MUST follow the ensuing steps:
During the
Clinical Interview
If necessary, address any concerns or distress that may arise during the assessment and ensure
the patient’s safety before ending the visit.
After the
Clinical Interview
Clinician completes the Clinical Utility Questionnaire. Patient completes evaluation of CC measures.