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Published Online: 1 December 2010

Agreement Between Clinician and Patient Ratings of Adaptive Functioning and Developmental History

Abstract

Objective:

Psychiatric researchers rely heavily on patient report data for clinical research. However, patient reports are prone to defensive and self-presentation biases. Recent research using practice networks has relied on clinician reports, and both forensic and personality disorder researchers have recently turned to quantified data from clinically expert observers as well. However, critics have raised legitimate concerns about the reliability and validity of data from clinician informants. The aim of this study was to assess the validity and diagnostic efficiency of clinician reports of their patients' adaptive functioning and developmental histories, using patient reports as the comparative standard traditionally used in psychiatric research.

Method:

Eighty-four clinicians and their patients completed a clinical data form designed to assess a range of patient functioning, clinical history, and developmental relationship variables used in multiple clinician report studies. The authors correlated clinician and patient reports across a number of clinically relevant adaptive functioning variables and calculated diagnostic efficiency statistics for a range of clinical history variables, including suicide attempts, hospitalizations, arrests, interpersonal conflicts affecting employment, and childhood physical and sexual abuse.

Results:

Across variables, patient-therapist correlations (0.40–0.66) and overall correct classification statistics (0.74–0.96) were high.

Conclusions:

The data demonstrate that clinicians' judgments about their patients' functioning and histories agree with patients' self-reports and that in areas of discrepancy, clinicians tend to make appropriately conservative judgments in the absence of clear data. These findings suggest that quantified clinical judgment provides a vast untapped potential for large-sample research on psychopathology and treatment.

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Information

Published In

Go to American Journal of Psychiatry
Go to American Journal of Psychiatry
American Journal of Psychiatry
Pages: 1472 - 1478
PubMed: 20634365

History

Received: 16 October 2009
Revision received: 18 January 2010
Revision received: 12 April 2010
Accepted: 19 April 2010
Published online: 1 December 2010
Published in print: December 2010

Authors

Details

Jared A. DeFife, Ph.D.
From the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, Emory University.
Rebecca Drill, Ph.D.
From the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, Emory University.
Ora Nakash, Ph.D.
From the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, Emory University.
Drew Westen, Ph.D.
From the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology, Emory University.

Notes

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. DeFife, Emory University, 36 Eagle Row, Ste. 270-Westen Lab, Atlanta, GA 30322; [email protected] (e-mail).

Funding Information

All authors report no financial relationships with commercial interests.

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