Interviewer behaviors during structured interviews to assess type A/B behavior in the Western collaborative group study and the multiple risk factor intervention trial

Abstract

The Structured Interview (SI) is considered the best method for assessing Type A/B behavior. An integral aspect of the SI is the interviewers' style of asking questions and responding to the subjects' answers. Because interviewer style may affect the predictive validity of Type A behavior, the current study describes interviewer behaviors which are likely to facilitate or inhibit subjects' speech. Audiotaped recordings of 746 SIs from the Western Collaborative Group Study (WCGS) and 577 SIs from the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT) were scored for (a) the number of scripted primary and follow-up questions interviewers asked subjects, (b) the amount of nonscripted interviewer speech, (c) the interruptions of subjects' speech, (d) the latency of asking primary questions, (e) the speed of speaking when asking questions, and (f) the total length of the interview. Each interviewer behavior differed between the WCGS and MRFIT interviews (p <.0001). The WCGS interviewers asked more questions, they interrupted less often, they paused longer between questions, and they spoke more slowly than the MRFIT interviewers. The interviews in the WCGS sample took an average of 13.5 min, compared to an average of 8.9 min for the MRFIT sample. Interviewers also differed significantly within each study, and for a given interviewer there were typically substantial differences between interviews.