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Abstract
The current study aims to compare telephone vs face-to-face administration of the version of Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition , (SCID) for diagnosis of "any psychotic disorderâ[euro] in a clinical population in Iran.
The sample consisted of 72 subjects from 2 psychiatric outpatient services in Tehran, Iran. The subjects were interviewed using face-to-face SCID for the purpose of diagnosing psychotic disorders. A second independent telephone SCID was administered to the entire sample within 5 to 10 days, and the lifetime and 12-month diagnoses were compared.
The positive likelihood ratio of telephone-administered SCID for diagnosis of "any lifetime psychotic disorderâ[euro] was 5.1 when compared with the face-to-face SCID. The value for the primary psychotic disorders in the past 12 months was lower (2.3).
The data indicate that telephone administration of the SCID is an acceptable method to differentiate between subjects with lifetime psychotic disorders and those who have had no psychotic disorders and provides a less resource-demanding alternative to face-to-face assessments.