CIDI, SCAN and IPDE: structured diagnostic interviews for ICD 10 and DSM III-R

Abstract

SummaryThe Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN) and the International Personality Disorder Examination (IPDE) constitute part of a family of instruments which have been designed for the assessment of mental disorders as defined by the explicit diagnostic criteria and algorithms in ICD 10 and DSM III-R. They have been developed at the request of the World Health Organization and the United States Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration to foster a common language in the mental health field, to facilitate comparisons of clinical and research findings from different settings, countries and cultures, and to improve the scientific basis of diagnosis and classification in psychiatry. This report describes the background, purpose and essential features of the three instruments.