THE DISCREPANCY INTERVIEW PROTOCOL - A METHOD FOR EVALUATING AND INTERPRETING DISCORDANT SURVEY RESPONSES

Collecting epidemiologic data on drug use is a challenge; users concea l and forget their use. Traditional methods for reducing inconsistenci es have been tried. In a one week test-retest study of the reliability and validity of substance use disorders, the CIDI-SAM was used to int erview 282 general population and treatment subjects. After the retest interview, answers were compared using the Discrepancy Interview. Rea sons for inconsistencies were assessed by asking respondents why their answers from one interview to the next were different. These reasons are described, as well as the implication of the findings for further epidemiologic methodologic work.