| Summary: | The World Health Organization (WHO) Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse is updating the diagnostic guidelines for mental and behavioural disorders intended for inclusion in the International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (ICD-11). When ratified and implemented, the ICD-11 will serve as a global standard used across the world for varied purposes ranging from diagnosis, clinical management, health data collection and reporting, research, service and program planning, and policy development. Given the eventual ubiquity of the ICD-11 and its potentially significant impact on clinical practice and public health, WHO has identified three core organizing principles to guide ICD-11 development: 1.) maximizing the clinical utility or usefulness of the guidelines in the clinical context (e.g., ease-of-use, goodness-of-fit, clarity, feasibility of implementation); 2.) assessing the clinical consistency or reliability of the guidelines; and 3.) ensuring the global applicability of the system to clinicians working in diverse settings worldwide. This article provides a review of each of these three core considerations, specifying rationale for their selection and defining the various mechanisms designed by WHO to assess and enhance these key elements of the ICD-11.
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