Symptom diagnostics based on clinical records: a tool for scientific research in child psychiatry?

Introduction: Child psychiatric diagnoses are generally based on a clinical examination and not on standardized questionnaires. The present study assessed whether symptom diagnostics based on clinical records facilitates the use of non-standardized clinical material for research.

Method: Six hundred and eighty-five children, referred to a third level child psychiatric centre in the Netherlands, were, after extensive multidisciplinary examination, classified according to the multi-axial classification scheme for psychiatric disorders in childhood and adolescence (MAC-ICD-9).