Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T23:17:59.316Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On Evaluating the Severity of Depression: An Experimental Study of Psychiatrists

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Hans-Ueli Fisch ,
Kenneth R. Hammond  and
C. R. B. Joyce
Hans-Ueli Fisch
Affiliation:
Research and Teaching, Psychiatrische Poliklinik, University of Bern, Murtenstrasse 21, CH-3010 Bern, Switzerland
Kenneth R. Hammond
Affiliation:
University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, 80309, USA
C. R. B. Joyce
Affiliation:
Project Innovation Group, Medical Department, CIBA-GEIGY Limited, CH-4002 Basel, Switzerland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

This study extends earlier work on the evaluation of depression by general physicians, and compares the results obtained with that group with those from a group of experienced psychiatrists. Differences within each group were larger than those between them. In neither group were individuals able to describe their own diagnostic processes with great accuracy, but psychiatrists were, as expected, somewhat more consistent than general physicians. They became even more so when allowed to select their own cues; of which, however, they made use of a smaller number. These tended to be of a specific rather than (as with the physicians) of a general nature.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 140 , Issue 4 , April 1982 , pp. 378 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1982 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Dawes, R. M. (1979) The robust beauty of improper linear models in decision making. American Psychologist, 34, 571–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisch, H.-U., Hammond, K. R., Joyce, C. R. B. & O'Reilly, M. J. (1981) An experimental study of the clinical judgement of general physicians in evaluating and prescribing for depression. British Journal of Psychiatry, 138, 100–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillis, J. S. & Moran, T. J. (1981) An analysis of drug decisions in a state psychiatric hospital. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 37, 32–42.3.0.CO;2-#>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldberg, L. R. (1970) Man versus model of man: a rationale, plus some evidence, for a method of improving on clinical inferences. Psychological Bulletin, 73, 422–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, M. (1967) Development of a rating scale for primary depressive illness. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 6, 278–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hammond, K. R., Stewart, T. R., Brehmer, B. & Steinmann, D. O. (1975) Social judgment theory. In Human Judgment and Decision Processes (eds. Kaplan, M. F. and Schwartz, S.). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hammond, K. R. & Adelman, L. (1976) Science, values, and human judgment. Science, 194, 389–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hammond, K. R. & Joyce, C. R. B. (1977) Psychological influences on human judgment, especially of adverse reactions. In Drug Monitoring (eds. Gross, F. H. and Inman, W. H. W.). London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Joyce, C. R. B., Berry, H., Chaput de Saintonge, M., Domenet, J., Fowler, P. & Mason, R. M. (1977) Judgment analysis of investigators' assessments: A way to reduce one important source of error in multi-centre trials. Eular Bulletin, Monograph 1.Google Scholar
Meehl, P. E. (1954) Clinical versus Statistical Prediction. Minneapolis, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Meehl, P. E. (1978) Theoretical risks and tabular asterisks: Sir Karl, Sir Ronald, and the slow progress of soft psychology. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 46, 806–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montgomery, S. A. & Asberg, M. (1979) A new depression scale designed to be sensitive to change. British Journal of Psychiatry, 134, 382–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mumpower, J. L., Veirs, V. & Hammond, K. R. (1979) Scientific information, social values and policy formation: The application of simulation models and judgment analysis to the Denver regional air pollution problem. IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, SMC-9 (9), 464–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartorius, N., Jablenski, W., Gulbinat, W. & Ernberg, G. (1980) WHO Collaborative Study: Assessment of depressive disorders. Psychological Medicine, 10, 743–9.Google ScholarPubMed
Shapiro, M. B. (1979) The relation of guilt and other feelings to the diagnosis of depression. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 52, 123–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sokol, R. R. & Sneath, P. T. (1963) Principles of Numerical Taxonomy. San Francisco: Freeman.Google Scholar
Zung, W. W. K. (1977) Operational diagnosis and diagnostic categories of depressive disorders. In Phenomenology and Treatment of Depression (eds. Fann, W. E., Karacan, I., Pokorny, A. D. and Williams, R. L.). New York: Spectrum Publications.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.