Although craving is likely to be a valid indicator of the presence of an SUD and is a key target of pharmacotherapy for addiction (O’Brien, 2005), there is concern over its potential redundancy with other criteria (Keyes et al., 2011, Mewton et al., 2010). Craving added little information to that provided by the other 10 DSM-5 diagnostic criteria (Mewton et al., 2010) and did not identify additional cases (Hasin et al., 2012; Keyes et al., 2011). Nevertheless, its inclusion increases comparability between DSM-5 and the International Classification of Diseases (Keyes et al., 2011), which in its Tenth Edition (ICD-10) includes craving as a diagnostic criterion (World Health Organization, 1992).
