The ETAT+ classification of illnesses was based on WHO guidelines in use during the study period [ 27].
Our audit relied upon the subjective classification of illnesses in order to categorise MCV results by explicability, and hence was subject to operator bias.
[ 12] However, core psychiatry including pharmacology, genetics, neuropsychiatry, classification of illness and biological treatment could be seen as generalisable.
In the Rosser classification of illness, assigning levels of disability and distress to each health state determine the quality of life of a patient.
Another limitation of this study is that samples were collected from outpatients but not hospitalized patients, which could bias the classification of illness toward being mild.
Therefore, before examining the records, a system for classification of illness associated with a diagnosis of malaria was developed using what was understood to be broadly available information at Karitas.
We propose a classification of illness that includes orthogonal dimensions of pathology and dysfunction to support a broadly based clinical approach to patients; adoption of which may lead to fewer inappropriate investigations and secondary care referrals and greater use of cognitive behavioural techniques, particularly when managing functional illness.
In Malawi, 68% of classifications of common illnesses by health surveillance assistants were in agreement with assessments done by physicians, and 63% of children were prescribed appropriate medication.
Poor recognition of signs and symptoms may in part be due to differences between biomedical definitions and classifications of childhood illnesses and local understandings of the overlap of symptoms.
This is a particularly relevant observation in the context of critiques of biomedical classifications of mental illnesses, which argue that they are largely derived from a cultural construction of 'western' thinking about mental health and represent an 'Americanization of mental illness' (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html).
