Am J Psychiatry 1987; 144:630-632
Copyright © 1987 by American Psychiatric Association
Family diagnoses missed on a clinical inpatient service
NJ Baker, SL Berry and LE Adler
Methods for taking family psychiatric histories have been developed
primarily for research rather than clinical settings. The authors compared
family histories obtained independently by a research team and by PGY-3
residents on 52 consecutively admitted adult psychiatric inpatients. In
contrast to the residents, the research team used a family tree, screening
questions, and a structured interview based on diagnostic criteria and
identified more than four times as many diagnoses in relatives as did the
residents. The results demonstrate that a family history strategy derived
from research methodology significantly enhances the gathering of important
diagnostic information in a clinical inpatient setting.
