Do patients'reports of their health care experiences reflect the quality of care? Measures of quality of health care interventions are influenced by more general feeling of well-being and quality of life, which in turn depend on a variety of biological, psychological and relational factors. For this reason, many medical studies on patient-centered outcome measures are increasingly recognizing the importance of integrating the views of the patient with those of its proxies.
Findings of a study conducted by members of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium suggest the presence of genetic alterations common to major psychiatric disorders, such as autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression, and schizophrenia. These results provide evidence relevant to the goal of moving beyond descriptive syndromes in psychiatry, and towards a nosology informed by disease cause.