Psychiatric diagnosis depends more from the experts' opinion than from the biological basis of the diseases. Therefore the lack of diagnostic stability among the psychiatric practice is not a rare situation. This usually results in increased costs in treatment and sometimes in worst outcome for the patient who is misdiagnosed at the onset of the illness.

The authors evaluated diagnostic stability among a population of 302 patients receiving psychiatric treatment in a day-care unit of a central hospital between January/2005 and June/2008. The study compared diagnostic stability of 146 patients diagnosed as mood disorder with diagnostic stability of 83 patients diagnosed as psychotic disorder.

There was high diagnostic stability either for mood disorders as for psychotic disorders. This fact provides the chance of planning more accurate treatment strategies and better outcome.