Mental disorder among homeless and poor people: A comparison of assessmentmethods

This study assessed mental disorders among 144 homeless and poor adults usi ng four different methods: (a) history of psychiatric hospitalization, (b) structured clinical interview, (c) self-report symptom checklist, and (d) i nterviewer ratings. These four methods yielded divergent estimates of menta l illness, ranging from 3-70%. Correlations assessing the degree of overlap among the measures were generally modest in magnitude. The results suggest that the variation in rates of mental illness across existing studies is d ue to methodological differences and that, with the exception of the struct ured interview, the various methods fail to adequately distinguish mental d isorder from substance abuse.