Comparison of Social Workers' and Psychiatrists' GAF Ratings

Tamar Zohar Harel, Ph.D., Donald W. Smith, Ph.D., and J. Mark Rowles, M.D., M.P.H. Authors Info & Affiliations

Publication: Psychiatric Services

https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.53.10.1330

In Reply: Although Dr. Kopera's alternative explanations are based on an inaccurate belief that the training provided to the psychiatrists and social workers was very similar, we would like to thank him for his interesting comments and his contribution of three alternative explanations for our findings that further support the main conclusions of the study.

Our study demonstrated that after the hospital's psychologist provided adequate training to the hospital's social work staff in using a computer-based GAF report (1) to generate GAF scores for patients being discharged, those scores and GAF scores given to the same patients by psychiatrists on the basis of their clinical impressions did not differ significantly across diagnostic groups.

Furthermore, this high level of interrater reliability suggests that such training can increase the usefulness of GAF scores in improving interdisciplinary communication about the continuity of patient care in the community after discharge.

Reference

First MB: GAF Report for the Global Assessment of Functioning Scale. Windows Version: User's Manual. Toronto, Multi Health Sustems, 1996

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Information & Authors

Information

Published In

Psychiatric Services

Volume 53 • Number 10 • October 2002

Pages: 1330

PubMed: 12364694

History

Published in print: October 2002

Published online: 8 October 2014

Authors

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Tamar Zohar Harel, Ph.D.

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Donald W. Smith, Ph.D.

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J. Mark Rowles, M.D., M.P.H.

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Comparison of Social Workers' and Psychiatrists' GAF Ratings

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