Accuracy of telepsychiatric assessment of new routine outpatient referrals.
BACKGROUND
Studies on the feasibility of telepsychiatry tend to concentrate only on a subset of clinical parameters. In contrast, this study utilises data from a comprehensive assessment. The main objective of this study is to compare the accuracy of findings from telepsychiatry with those from face to face interviews.


METHODS
This is a primary, cross-sectional, single-cluster, balanced crossover, blind study involving new routine psychiatric referrals. Thirty-seven out of forty cases fulfilling the selection criteria went through a complete set of independent face to face and video assessments by the researchers who were blind to each other's findings.


RESULTS
The accuracy ratio of the pooled results for DSM-IV diagnoses, risk assessment, non-drug and drug interventions were all above 0.76, and the combined overall accuracy ratio was 0.81. There were substantial intermethod agreements for Cohen's kappa on all the major components of evaluation except on the Risk Assessment Scale where there was only weak agreement.


CONCLUSIONS
Telepsychiatric assessment is a dependable method of assessment with a high degree of accuracy and substantial overall intermethod agreement when compared with standard face to face interview for new routine outpatient psychiatric referrals.
Singh
Surendra P
SP
Wolverhampton City Primary Care Trust, Mental Health Directorate, Steps to Health, Showell Circus, Low Hill, Wolverhampton WV10 9TH, UK. spd@mediware.it
Arya
Dinesh
D
Peters
Trish
T
D000328:Adult; D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D018592:Cross-Over Studies; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012017:Referral and Consultation / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D017216:Telemedicine / Q000379:methods*