The AMDP system for the documentation of psychiatric symptoms: course and effectivity of a training seminar

In an AMDP training seminar on psychopathology, the possible learning effects were studied. Eighteen psychiatrists with varying levels of experience saw five video tapes of patient explorations within one and one-half days. The first and the last tape were identical. This enables a comparison of the ratings of these two tapes. The extent to which the raters agreed with regard to the frequencies of the AMDP items was examined both in relation to "present"-"absent" as well as with regard to the severity. The interrater reliability clearly increased in the course of the training. This increase was greater with the inexperienced raters than with the experienced group. The greatest change between the first and the last rating occurred between "mild" and "absent", thus indicating a threshold problem in the assessment of psychopathological symptoms.