RELIABILITY

Question 1

Strength Brown 1996

Answer 1

Brown et al found there was a 67% agreement rate for major depression which is classed as good reliability.

Question 2

Strength Goldstein 1988

Answer 2

Goldstein tested the DSM III for reliability and found that there was reliability; she looked at the effect of gender on the experience of SZ and she rediagnosed 169/199 patients, who were diagnosed by the DSM II, using the DSM III.

Question 3

Strength Beck 1962

Answer 3

Beck demonstrated poor reliability using the DSM but more recent versions of the DSM have shown higher levels of reliability. Low levels of reliability could be because patients vary in what they report to different clinicians.

Question 4

Strength Rosenhan 1972

Answer 4

Rosenhan’s pseudo-patients presented with the same single symptoms of SZ and all but one (diagnosed as bi-polar) were diagnosed with SZ, showing the DSM symptoms are reliable.

Question 5

Weakness Beck 1961

Answer 5

Beck et al found that agreement among diagnosticians was at about the level of chance - they gave 2 psychiatrists 153 patients to diagnose, but the two only agreed 54% of the time suggesting diagnosis can be highly unreliable.

Question 6

Weakness Cooper 2014

Answer 6

Cooper suggested that just under half the clinicians had moved over to the DSM5 a year after it had been released, commenting that they were concerned about it’s reliability.

Question 7

Weakness Cooper 1972

Answer 7

Cooper et al showed UK and US psychiatrists the same videotaped interview and asked them to make a diagnosis, New York psychiatrists said it was SZ twice as often, whereas London psychiatrists said it was depression twice as often.