The Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children-Revised Version (DISC-R): III. Concurrent criterion validity

Abstract

Objective: To examine the concurrent criterion validity of the Revised Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC-R), a structured lay-administered instrument designed for use in community studies, under conditions designed to provide strict controls for information and method variance.

Method: The DISC-R was compared with a semistructured clinical interview that covered a similar information base as the DISC-R, used standardized ratings to record symptom information, and, similar to the DISC-R, was scored by DSM-III-R-based computerized diagnostic algorithms. Subjects were 74 child and adolescent clinic attendees and their adult custodians.

Results: Overall, moderate levels of agreement were found between DISC-R and clinician-generated diagnoses; these findings were tempered, however, by the fact that the validation interview was less reliable than the DISC-R.

Conclusions: Although these findings provide preliminary support for the use of the DISC-R, they cast some doubt on the adequacy of clinician-generated diagnoses as validation criteria and suggest that alternate approaches to the assessment of validation should be pursued.