Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:822-825
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
The fate of the clinical interview: an observational study
HL Muslin, RJ Thurnblad and G Meschel
To highlight differences between data observed in patient interviews
conducted by medical students and reports of these data in supervision, the
authors compared the number of themes in 26 videotaped interviews with
those reported by the students in supervision. They found that 54% of the
themes of the videotaped interviews were not reported in supervision; 42%
of the themes were reported. Some degree of distortion was present in 14
(54%) of the interviews; 6% (N = 37) of the themes identified were
distorted. The authors conclude that the training of students in psychiatry
must include careful attention to observation of the manifest details of
the actual patient interview conducted by the student.
