Reliability of psychiatric diagnosis in hospitalized adolescents. Interrater agreement using DSM-III
M. Strober, J. Green and G. Carlson
To determine the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis in hospitalized
adolescents, 95 consecutively admitted patients were diagnosed
independently by two experienced clinicians using DSM-III criteria.
Diagnostic judgments were based on joint interview of the patient via a
structured mental-status examination, nursing observations, and referral
materials. Concordance was analyzed by the kappa coefficient. A total of 13
DSM-III categories were used to classify this cohort, with the majority of
categories representing traditional syndromes of functional
psychopathology. There was complete agreement between the raters for more
than three fourths of the patients. Levels of agreement for the categories
of schizophrenia and major affective disorder were similar to values
obtained in recent studies of adult patients. The results are discussed in
relation to historical conceptions of adolescent psychopathology.
