Am J Psychiatry 1987; 144:1477-1480
Copyright © 1987 by American Psychiatric Association
A comparison of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule and clinical diagnosis
HP Erdman, MH Klein, JH Greist, SM Bass, JK Bires and PE Machtinger
Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison 53792.
The Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) was administered to 220 psychiatric
patients by lay interviewers. Kappas for agreement between DIS and chart
diagnoses ranged from .39 to -.03 and averaged .14 for 13 diagnostic
categories. Agreement was best for affective, obsessive- compulsive, and
schizophrenic disorders and was poorest for phobias where patients
overemphasized fears. The authors suggest that clinician evaluation of
information collected by the DIS is important, especially in diagnosing
individual cases.
