This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Bruce P. Dohrenwend, PhD; Thomas J. Yager, PhD; Gladys Egri, MD; Frederick S. Mendelsohn, MD

Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1978;35(6):731-737.

Abstract
• The Psychiatric Status Schedule (PSS) is a widely used interview that was designed to improve the research value of clinical judgments. Although it was developed with psychiatric patients, its authors hoped it could be used to evaluate nonpatients, a capability that would make it a much needed tool for epidemiologic research. The present study tests the internal consistency reliability of scales drawn from the PSS in both a general population sample (n. = 133) and a patient sample (n. = 100). Like the PSS's authors, we found a wide variety of clinically meaningful scales reliable for use with patients. In striking contrast, however, most of these proved unreliable in the general population sample. Speculative explanations are offered for the failure of most of the PSS scales in the general population sample and for the success of a few.

Author Affiliations
From the Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication Nov 1, 1977.

Reprint requests to Social Psychiatry Research Unit, Columbia University, 100 Haven Ave, 3-19H, New York, NY 10032 (Dr Dohrenwend).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Nonspecific Psychological Distress and Other Dimensions of Psychopathology: Measures for Use in the General Population
Dohrenwend et al.
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1980;37:1229-1236.
ABSTRACT  

The Psychiatric Status Schedule for Epidemiological Research: Methodological Considerations
Spitzer et al.
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1980;37:1193-1197.
ABSTRACT  

Some Problems of Validity With the Psychiatric Status Schedule as an Instrument for Case Identification and Classification in the General Population-Reply
Spitzer et al.
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1980;37:721-721.
ABSTRACT  

Some Problems of Validity With the Psychiatric Status Schedule as an Instrument for Case Identification and Classification in the General Population
Dohrenwend et al.
Arch Gen Psychiatry 1980;37:720-721.
ABSTRACT