Agreement between two structured psychiatric diagnostic interviews: DIS and the PDI

Agreement between two structured, criterion-based, diagnostic interviews was determined for 86 psychiatric inpatients. The patients were given the Diagnostic Interview Schedule and the Psychiatric Diagnostic Interview on two separate occasions by two teams of trained interviewers who were blind to the patients' hospital diagnoses. Agreement between the two procedures was quite high with respect to (a) total number of positive syndromes, (b) identification of specific syndromes, (c) final diagnoses, and (d) ratings of clinical compatibility by experienced psychiatrists. Diagnostic discrepancies were primarily due to differences in the way the two instruments approach patients who fulfilled inclusive diagnostic criteria for two or more psychiatric syndromes. Although both interviews provide similar diagnostic information, the relative ease of administration and scoring of the PDI recommend it for clinical use.