[The Luebeck Interview for Psychosocial Screening (LIPS)--a validation study with patients suffering from coronary...

Identifying patients in cardiology who are able to benefit from more detailed psychosocial diagnostics or interventions is still problematic in every day hospital care. Existing psychosocial screening instruments--either self-evaluation questionnaires and evaluation interviews carried out by doctors--are discussed. A new screening instrument for evaluating patients in cardiology is presented: The Luebeck Interview for Psychosocial Screening (LIPS). With help of LIPS patients are evaluated by their doctor through a short semistructured interview referring to the patients' psychosocial situation. Test statistical data of the instrument gained through 194 patients are presented. For a subgroup of 80 patients the validity for predicting their quality of life six weeks after discharge form hospital by psychosocial assessment in hospital is presented. Data on reliability and validity of LIPS appear to range from acceptable to good. Predicting quality of life by self-report inventories reaches a better fit than a prediction by LIPS as an evaluation from the doctor's perspective. The errors of the prediction by both methods are highly correlated. Further research on LIPS combined with a structured clinical Interview for mental disorders seems to be desirable.