5.1.2 Reliability and Validity of diagnoses

Question 1

Inter Rater Reliability

Answer 1

When two clinicians can review the same information about the symptoms of one patient and come to the same conclusion about diagnosis.

Question 2

Reliability

Answer 2

Is about consistency within results whereby psychiatrists and classification systems can come to the same conclusion everything time.

Question 3

Strength

Answer 3

Evidence
Brown found good agreement and inter rater between most of the categories and issues only arose about length, severity and amount of symptoms

Question 4

Weakness

Answer 4

Opposing Evidence
Andes’s found little agreement between using the ICD and DSM showing low consistency

Question 5

Test Retest Reliability

Answer 5

Test retest is about diagnosing at two different points and finding consistency throughout. Cohens Kappa measures the proportion of people who receive the same diagnosis at a later date.

Question 6

Strength

Answer 6

Evidence
Cooper found 0.2 to 0.4 to be acceptable and the result of 0.28 for major depressive disorder

Question 7

Cohens kappa

Answer 7

0.7 was seen to be in good agreement.

Question 8

Weakness

Answer 8

Opposing Evidence
Spitzer and Felis found that 0.7 reliability is only satisfactory and reliability may not be important if the focus is on individualised treatment that will work to recover or lessen the mental health issues

Question 9

Validity

Answer 9

How accurately the diagnosis matches symptoms.

Question 10

Predictive validity

Answer 10

Whether the outcome is as predicted after being diagnosed,

Question 11

Strength

Answer 11

Evidence
Mason found ICD 9+10 were good at predicting disability in sz people 13 years after.

Question 12

Weakness

Answer 12

Criticism
Reductionist as it reduces down to symptoms/features and would be more valid if holistic.

Question 13

Concurrent validity

Answer 13

Producing the same results/diagnosis using another diagnostic tool

Question 14

Strength

Answer 14

Evidence
Lee found that when comparing a questionnaire from teachers about behaviour to the DSM criteria that there was similar relationships

Question 15

Weakness

Answer 15

Criticism
Labels may affect questionnaire data and perceptions because they may be biased to give results.