F18 — Mental and behavioural disorders due to use of volatile solvents

Concept, in one sentence

Volatile solvents carry direct acute medical risk from intoxication itself; harmful use often applies even without the fuller dependence-syndrome cluster, which is less consistently established for this category than for most others in this block.

Decisive boundary cues

• Clear physical harm from intoxication, without control difficulty or craving -> weighs toward harmful use, not dependence.
• Escalating, hard-to-control use with craving between episodes -> weighs toward dependence syndrome.
• A single isolated episode with no repetition -> often too little evidence for either harmful use or dependence.

Duration/course cue

Acute intoxication effects are brief, typically resolving within minutes to a couple of hours.

Nearest alternatives

Common mistake

Treating any repeated volatile-solvent use as automatic evidence of dependence syndrome rather than checking for the fuller criteria cluster.

Retrieval prompt — one-line memory anchor

What single question would you ask first about whether any craving occurs between episodes of use?