Comparability between telephone and face-to-face structured clinical interview for DSM-IV in assessing social anxiety disorder.

Purpose: This article evaluates the comparability of the telephone and in-person Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) interviews in assessing patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) as an independent anxiety diagnosis.

Design And Methods: One hundred subjects were randomly selected and interviewed with the SCID, once by telephone and once in person (1-3 months later).

Findings: The prevalence of SAD assessed with the telephone interviews was 56%, whereas the in-person prevalence was 52%, with no statistically significant difference. The test-retest kappa for the 200 interviews was .84, indication of excellent agreement.

Practice Implications: These findings, along with the existing evidence of their validity, should encourage the use of SCID by telephone for SAD diagnostic interviews.