healers or other variations in illness manageme nt that are acceptable within a culture and
represent an attempt to help the medical condition rather than interfere with it. These local
practices may complement rather than obstruct  evidence-based interventions. If they do
not adversely affect out comes, they should not be pathol ogized as psychological factors
affecting other medical conditions.
Functional Consequences of Psychological Factors 
Affecting Other Medical Conditions
Psychological and behavioral factors have been demonstrated to affect the course of many
medical diseases.
Differential Diagnosis
Mental disorder due to another medical condition. A temporal association between
symptoms of a mental disorder and those of a medical condition is also  characteristic of a
mental disorder due to another medical condition, but the presumed causality is in the op-
posite direction. In a mental disorder du e to another medical condition, the medical
condition is judged to be caus ing the mental disorder through a direct physiological mech-
anism. In psychological factors affecting other medical conditions, the psychological or be-
havioral factors are judged to affect the course of the medical condition.
Adjustment disorders. Abnormal psychological or behavioral symptoms that develop in
response to a medical condition are more proper ly coded as an adjustment disorder (a clin-
ically significant psychological response to an identifiable stressor). For example, an indi-