The Effects of Adjustment Disorders and Stress Response Syndromes

6. Diagnosis

Because adjustment disorder and stress response syndrome appear in the DSM-5 and ICD-11, there exist official methods for diagnosis. Doctors must identify a stressor and how removing it will affect the patient. This becomes significantly more difficult with long-term stressors because the exposure results in adjustment disorders, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety disorder. An important part of diagnosing an adjustment disorder is ruling out these similar conditions. Additionally, the symptoms should be significantly more intense than those that are part of the normal grieving process or stress response, which are also highly variable reactions.