New study casts doubt on reliability of mental health diagnosis interviews

Diagnostic interviews seen as ‘gold standard’ vary in reliability from condition to condition, study says

Diagnostic interviews – the most common way to diagnose substance use and mental disorders including depression, anxiety, bipolar and personality disorders – vary in reliability from condition to condition, according to a new study in Jama Network Open.

Laura Duncan, a psychiatry professor at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and one of the study’s authors, said diagnostic interviews are “often treated as a ‘gold standard’ for assessing mental disorders in both clinical settings and research”, but pointed out that these interviews fall short of providing a “definitive benchmark that demonstrates excellent validity and reliability”.