Issues Of Classification

Question 1

Reliability ao2

Skyre

Answer 1

Assessed inter rater reliability for diagnosing social phobia by asking three clinicians
54 patient interviews
Using SCID1
High agreement 0.72
Shows that diagnosis of phobias is reliable

Question 2

Reliability ao2

Hiller

Answer 2

SCID is semi structured 
Requires training to administer 
1-2 hours to complete 
MDC - shorter, self administration 
Satisfactory to excellent diagnostic agreement in test re test

Question 3

Reliability ao2

Kendler

Answer 3

Face to face and telephone interviews
One month interval found w mean agreement of only 0.46
Over 8 years was lower 0.30

Due to poor recall of fear - over exaggeration
Different decisions by interviewers on deciding if severity of a symptom does it does not exceed the clinical threshold

Question 4

Validity

Answer 4

Extent to which a diagnosis represents something real
Measures what it claims to
Construct - measures the extent to which s test measures a construct
Concurrent - establishes validity by comparing one method with another

Question 5

Construct evidence

Answer 5

Research shows the SPI correlates well with behavioural measures of social phobias
It lacks association to behaviours unrelated to social phobias

Question 6

Concurrent evidence

Answer 6

Mattrick and Clark

SPS correlates well with other standard measures 0.54-0.69

Question 7

Comorbility

Answer 7

The extent to which two or more conditions coexist

If they do = not separate entities so diagnostic category is not useful

Question 8

Comorbidiy ao2

Kendler

Answer 8

High levels of comorbidiy between social phobias, animal phobias and depression

Question 9

Comorbidiy ao2

Eysenck

Answer 9

66% of patients with one anxiety disorder are also diagnosed with another
More appropriate to group all anxiety disorders together

Question 10

Culture

Answer 10

Main factor in diagnosing = extent to which it interferes with life and whether it is extreme
Cultural ideas about normal functioning and normal fears affect diagnosis
Koro - Chinese men scared penis will withdraw into abdomen

Question 11

Computer scales

Answer 11

Assess phobia 
Easy 
Cost effective 
Reliable - less chance if administer effecting 
Social phobias 

No skilled Clinician who play an important role in trouble shooting

Question 12

Reliability

Answer 12

Refers to the consistency of a measuring instrument
Inter rater - terms of if 2 assessors give similar scores
Test retest - if a test produces the same results on two separate occasions