One of the WHO's innovations for improving the ICD-11 chapter Mental and Behavioral Disorders was the creation of the Global Clinical Practice Network (GCPN), an international network of more than 12,000 mental health and primary care professionals from 144 countries.

In order to evaluate perceived clinical utility of the ICD-11 guidelines, the case-controlled field studies that involved the application of the proposed diagnostic guidelines to standardized case material were implemented via the Internet in different languages.

Two hundred and seventy-eight Russian mental health care professionals, the GCPN members, have participated in case controlled Internet study for the chapter “Schizophrenia and Other Primary Psychotic Disorders”. Russian participants were represented by psychiatrists mostly (89%) and much less by psychologists (8%) which corresponds with the general situation in the Russian mental health care system.

Russian clinicians have used the proposed ICD-11 diagnostic guidelines successfully to assess delusional disorder as well as schizophrenia. But there were certain categories (schizoaffective disorder, subthreshold delusions) with which the participants seemed to struggle. The critical comments were focused on opposing so called syndrome-based assessment and nosological diagnostics. Most concerns were about elimination of Schizophrenia subtypes.

Russian mental health care professionals proved to be interested in ICD revision process and demonstrated their special diagnostics opinion based on rich clinical traditions and psychopathological approach. In order to use ICD-11 guidelines in clinical practice more efficiently supplementary appropriate training would be needed.

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.