A comparative study of posttraumatic stress disorder assessment under standard conditions and in the field

摘要

Little is known about the performance of clinician‐administered structured diagnostic interviews when given under variable levels of examiner training and monitoring. We sought to explore this question. We examined the performance of a self‐report questionnaire and a structured clinical interview in the assessment of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in two community samples of war veterans. One sample was interviewed under standard conditions (N = 372) and the other under unknown and less standardized conditions (N = 420), more closely approximating ‘field conditions’. Interview results were used to predict questionnaire‐based PTSD status. Kappas, sensitivities, specificities, and positive predictive powers were moderate and of similar magnitude in both samples. Our results suggest that even under uncertain (‘field’) conditions, clinician‐administered structured interviews can produce results comparable to those produced under more tightly controlled conditions. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.