A Comparison of Some Aspects of Structured and Unstructured Psychiatric Interviews

Abstract

The author presents the results of a comparison between a standardized interviewing instrument and the traditional free-style medical interview that involved two groups of interviewers. The author's ratings of their conduct of the interviews, their styles, and their points of emphasis indicated that the standardized instrument was more comprehensive in its coverage of psychiatric pathology. On the other hand, the free-style interview allowed significant individual variation in emphasis, which contributes to differences among observers and impedes comparability of the work of different researchers.