title: Diagnostic consistency in assessing conduct disorder: an experiment on the effect of social context.
abstract: The major objective of the diagnostic criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (see, e.g., the 4th ed., American Psychiatric Association, 1994) has been to achieve better diagnostic consistency. This has proved to be an elusive goal, because the diagnostic criteria and their rules for application can be ambiguous. This study mailed systematically varied case vignettes of conduct disorder to a nationally representative sample of 1,500 mental health clinicians in order to examine the effect of social context on diagnostic consistency. It found that consistency of diagnosis was modest and that it was affected by context and varied by profession.
authors.affiliation: School of Public Policy and Social Research, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1656, USA. kirk@ucla.edu
authors.forename: Stuart A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Kirk
authors.forename: Derek K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Hsieh
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D019955:Conduct Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D003625:Data Collection; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D039721:Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012919:Social Behavior