The collaborative longitudinal personality disorders study: Reliability ofaxis I and II diagnoses

Both the interrater and test-retest reliability of axis I and axis II disor ders were assessed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I) and the Diagnostic Interview for DSM-IV Personality Di sorders (DIPD-IV). Fair-good median interrater kappa (.40-.75) were found f or all axis II disorders diagnosed five times or more, except antisocial pe rsonality disorder (1.0). AU of the test-retest kappa for axis II disorders , except for narcissistic personality disorder (1.0) and paranoid personali ty disorder (.39), were also found to be fair-good. Interrater and test-ret est dimensional reliability figures for axis II were generally higher than those for their categorical counterparts; most were in the excellent range (>.75). In terms of axis I, excellent median interrater kappa were found fo r six of the 10 disorders diagnosed five times or more, whereas fair-good m edian interrater kappa were found for the other four axis I disorders. In g eneral, test-retest reliability figures for axis I disorders were somewhat lower than the interrater reliability figures. Three test-retest kappa were in the excellent range, six were in the fair-good range, and one (for dyst hymia) was in the poor range (.35). Taken together, the results of this stu dy suggest that both axis I and axis IT disorders can be diagnosed reliably when using appropriate semistructured interviews.