The present versions of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is being revised and their update will be published in a close future. In this sense, our purpose was to know the use of diagnostic criteria, in the Psychiatry area, since a bibliometric perspective.

The material studied was selected using databases (EMBASE & MEDLINE) during 1980-2005 period. Those documents that include the descriptors DSM*, ICD*, diagnostic criteria, Psychiat*, drug* were selected. We applied some bibliometric rules as Price´s Law of increasing in scientific literature.

A total of 11916 (DSM), 2019 (ICD), 30 (Chinese Classification of Mental Disorder), 5 (Cuban Glossary of Psychiatry and Latin American Guide for Psychiatry) documents were obtained in Medline database. Our results show nonfulfilment of Price´s Law because production on DSM or ICD does not grow exponential (yDSM=54.576e0.1255x ; rDSM=0.95; yICD=4.2643e0.1616x; rICD=0.93), after linear adjustment (yDSM= 35.381x-50.295; rDSM=0.98; y=7.7221x-34.931; rICD=0.98). Journals of American and European associations with the highest IF were selected from EMBASE database: American Journal of Psychiatry (IF=8.286; PaIDSM=12.39; PaIICD=0.58) and British Journal of Psychiatry (IF=4.956; PaIDSM=5.62; PaIICD=1.88).

During last years, the uses of diagnostic criteria (DSM or ICD) have increased in scientific literature. Nevertheless, documents that use other classifications are rather little.