[Agreement between traditional and computer diagnosis in psychiatric outpatients (author's transl)]

Psychiatric diagnosis based on personal interviews with 100 clinic outpatients was made and the data thus obtained were documented in Spitzer's and Endicott's CAPPS (Current and Past Psychopathology Scales). Two clinicians and the computer program DIAL - a modification of the DIAGNO II program of the same authors - diagnosed the same patients independently of each other basing their diagnoses solely on the entries in the CAPPS. The diagnostic agreement between the different diagnoses was evaluated and results compared with earlier findings by Schmid et al. These authors had, however, used CAPPS data gathered from case histories and not from direct interviews of patients. The modification in the procedure of gathering the data resulted in a slight, but statistically insignificant improvement in diagnostic agreement. The possibility of improving diagnostic agreement by the use of another scale is discussed.