Title: Towards an ontology for psychological disorders

Authors: Alejandro Rodríguez González; Jose María Álvarez Rodríguez; Cristina Casado-Lumbreras; Ricardo Colomo-Palacios

Addresses: Centre for Biotechnology and Plant Genomics, UPM-INIA, Parque Científico y Tecnológico de la U.P.M., Campus de Montegancedo, 28223 Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain ' WESO Research Group, Faculty of Science, Department of Computer Science, University of Oviedo, C/Calvo Sotelo, S/N, 33007, Oviedo, Asturias, Spain ' Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, Paseo de La Castellana 163, 28046, Madrid, Spain ' Computer Science Department, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Av. Universidad 30, 28911 Leganés, Madrid, Spain

Abstract: Psychological diagnosis is the process by which mental health professionals determine if problems that affect a person meet all the specific criteria for a psychological disorder. In recent years, decision support systems (DSS) have helped practitioners in the field of psychological clinical diagnosis with notable results. Given that ontologies are created, among other goals, to allow different sorts of formal reasoning, they are seen as valid artefacts to support a new generation of DSS for mental health professionals. Although some initiatives have emerged in order to build realistic ontologies of mental diseases, this field presents a remarkable heterogeneity of data and two different clinical classification systems, which is why this paper presents an ontology with the aim of reusing existing works and serving as the key element of a clinical DSS in the field of mental disorders.

Keywords: psychological disorders; semantics; ontologies; ICD-10; mental health; decision support systems; clinical DSS; clinical classification.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMSO.2012.051489

International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies, 2012 Vol.7 No.4, pp.260 - 268

Published online: 31 Dec 2014 *

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