Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2012
Keywords
Diagnosis, Mental Health Services, Research, Informant Agreement, Child, Adolescent
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.2458/v3i1.16110
Abstract
This paper presents results from a three-part study on diagnosis of children with affective and behavior disorders. We examined the reliability, discriminant, and predictive validity of common diagnoses used in mental health services research using a research diagnostic interview. Results suggest four problems: a) some diagnoses demonstrate internal consistency only slightly better than symptoms chosen at random; b) diagnosis did not add appreciably to a brief global functioning screen in predicting service use; c) low inter-rater reliability among informants and clinicians for six of the most common diagnoses; and d) clinician diagnoses differed between sites in ways that reflect different reimbursement strategies. The study concludes that clinicians and researchers should not assume diagnosis is a useful measure of child and adolescent problems and outcomes until there is more evidence supporting the validity of diagnosis.
Rights Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Journal of Methods and Measurement in the Social Sciences, v. 3, issue 1, p. 1-26
Scholar Commons Citation
Bickman, Leonard; Wighton, Lynne G.; Lambert, E. Warren; Karver, Marc; and Steding, Lindsey, "Problems in Using Diagnosis in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Research" (2012). Psychology Faculty Publications. 1656.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/psy_facpub/1656
