Does Clinical Experience or Professional Training Have an Impact On What Symptoms Are Thought To Be Important Features of Depression?

Thomas Forkmann, Nicole Eberle, Maren Boecker, Markus Wirtz, Christine Norra and Siegfried Gauggel
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Thomas Forkmann: Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University Hospital of RWTH Aachen University, Germany, tforkmann@ukaachen.de
Nicole Eberle: Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University Hospital of RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Maren Boecker: Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University Hospital of RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Markus Wirtz: Institute of Psychology, University of Education, Freiburg, Germany
Christine Norra: Psychiatry - Psychotherapy - Psychosomatics - Preventive Medicine, LWL-University Hospital, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany
Siegfried Gauggel: Institute of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology, University Hospital of RWTH Aachen University, Germany

International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2011, vol. 57, issue 3, 312-321

Abstract: Background: Concerning diagnostics of mental disorders, increasing time and cost pressure in the clinical practice often requires an ad hoc and intuitive holistic examination of the patient’s clinical presentation instead of the application of standardized diagnostic instruments. This study examined whether attributes of mental healthcare professionals (professional training, clinical experience, socio-demographic variables) affect their implicit weighing of symptoms they encounter in such unstandardized diagnostic situations. Methods: Twenty psychiatrists and 28 clinical psychologists rated the relevance of 241 items for the diagnosis of a depressive episode. Items referred to the nine A-criteria of DSM-IV and associated features. Intraclass correlations (ICC), regression analysis and t -tests were calculated. Results: Clinicians agreed largely in their relevance judgements on the different items ( ICC = 0.97, F 183,8784 = 44.29, p

Keywords: depression; interrater reliability; clinical experts; unstandardized diagnostics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:socpsy:v:57:y:2011:i:3:p:312-321

DOI: 10.1177/0020764009358259

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