ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1592912
From Adventures to Diagnosis: Adolescent Behavior in Classic Fiction Through the Eyes of Newly Licensed Czech Psychiatrists – A Vignette Study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen, Charles University, Plzen, Czechia
- 2Institute for postgraduate medical education, Prague, Prague, Czechia
- 3Psychiatric Hospital Bohnice, Prague, Prague, Czechia
- 4First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Prague, Prague, Czechia
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IntroductionYouth mental health is a growing concern, with reports of psychiatric diagnoses becoming increasingly prevalent. Among other factors, psychiatrization may inflate the observed prevalence by interpreting experiences previously understood as adversities inherent to human life as symptoms of psychopathology. The current study explores the pathologization of behaviors typical of adolescence by asking contemporary psychiatrists to diagnose and treat a character from a novel who is considered a prototypical teenager of the 19th century: Tom Sawyer.MethodsA one-page vignette was distributed either in sealed envelopes or via email to 57 psychiatrists who had obtained their license for independent practice between 2021 and 2023 in the Czech Republic. In total, 47 psychiatrists took part, yielding an overall response rate of 82%. The number and frequency of diagnostic conclusions, prescribed medications, and recommended interventions are reported.ResultsMost respondents diagnosed the boy described in the vignette with a psychiatric disorder (94%; CI = 81–98%) and recommended an intervention within the healthcare system (89%; CI =76–96%). Two thirds (62%, CI = 46–75%) recommended pharmacotherapy: antidepressants (27%), antipsychotics (22%), stimulants (13%), and anxiolytics (2%); 68% (53–80%) recommended psychotherapy. Nonmedical interventions (e.g., counseling, social services) were recommended by 49%.ConclusionsThe experiences of an adolescent boy, once interpreted as normative “adventures” in the 19th century, were recognized by newly certified psychiatrists as a psychiatric disorder. These findings illustrate the extent of psychiatrization over time and suggest that expert diagnoses may substantially contribute to the overinterpretation of problems of living as psychiatric disorders.
Keywords: Diagnostic inflation, Cross-cultural comparison (MeSH), Mental Disorders, Adolescent, Psychiatrization of Society
Received: 13 Mar 2025; Accepted: 22 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Pisl, Hodkova, Hudecek, Páv and Vevera. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jan Vevera, Faculty of Medicine in Pilsen, Charles University, Plzen, Czechia
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