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Interviewing adolescents by telephone: is it a useful methodological strategy?
1Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO 63110.
Comprehensive Psychiatry
|May 1, 1990
Summary
Telephone interviews are a reliable method for psychiatric assessments in youth, yielding comparable data to in-person interviews. This approach ensures valuable information is not lost in child psychiatric research.
Area of Science:
- Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
- Mental Health Research Methods
Background:
- Structured psychiatric interviews are crucial for diagnosing mental health conditions in youth.
- In-person interviews can be resource-intensive and pose logistical challenges.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the efficacy of telephone versus in-person structured psychiatric interviews in youths.
- To determine if telephone interviews impact data quality in child psychiatric research.
Main Methods:
- Conducted structured psychiatric interviews with two groups of 25 youths.
- One group was interviewed via telephone, the other in-person.
- Compared the data obtained from both interview modalities.
Main Results:
- No significant differences were observed between the telephone and in-person interview groups.
- Data quality and information obtained were comparable across both methods.
Conclusions:
- Telephone interviews are a viable and effective alternative to in-person interviews for psychiatric assessments in children and adolescents.
- Utilizing telephone interviews in research can maintain data integrity while potentially increasing accessibility and reducing costs.