Chinese diagnostic interview schedule. I. Agreement with psychiatrist's diagnosis

NIMH-DIS was translated into Chinese and modified to the Chinese version of DIS (DIS-CM). One hundred clinical patients and 187 community subjects were studied for diagnostic agreement between the DIS-CM and the psychiatrist's clinical diagnosis. In the community sample, DIS-CM overdiagnosed the cases of manic episode, phobic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and alcoholic problem, while it underdiagnosed the cases of tobacco dependence in the community sample and manic episode in the clinical cases. Standard diagnostic criteria, method of symptom detection, and social desirability, were identified as the major factors contributing to the diagnostic disparity. Variables related to life situations, language habit and medical histories were also analysed to test the external validity of the DIS-CM in case identification. The results affirm that the DIS-CM is reliable as a psychiatric epidemiological tool.