SCREENING FOR PSYCHOPATHOLOGY IN THE CLINICAL-PRACTICE

Different instruments are used in clinical practice to assess comorbid psychopathology in addicted individuals. This study is aimed at compa ring two of those instruments. In total, 327 heroin-and methadone-addi cted individuals were interviewed in three treatment settings and outs ide treatment. Instruments used are the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) and the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). The form er instrument results in a general measure of severity of psychopathol ogy, while the latter results in categorical DSM-III-F: diagnoses. A c omparison of the results show, however, that the two types of data do not agree to a large extent. By using the DSM-III-R data as golden sta ndard, it appeared that a part of the psychopathology cases was missed out by the ASI severity measures. The results, that are especially of interest for clinicians using the ASI, are presented for various diso rders. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Inc.