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Published Online:https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.126.7.968

In a two-phase study of diagnostic decision making, psychiatrist observers viewed films of diagnostic interviews and recorded their comments and the symptoms they saw in the patients. Analysis of the results, in terms of the time at which conclusions and symptoms were reported, revealed that the first three minutes of observation have a significant, and sometimes apparently decisive, impact upon the final diagnostic decision.

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