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Psychiatric Interviewing Techniques II. Naturalistic Study: Eliciting Factual Information

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

A. Cox ,
K. Hopkinson  and
M. Rutter
A. Cox
Affiliation:
The Maudsley Hospital, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AZ
K. Hopkinson
Affiliation:
c/o The Coverdale Organisation, 3 Logan Place, London W8
M. Rutter
Affiliation:
Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, Camberwell, London SE5 8AZ
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Summary

A naturalistic study was undertaken of 36 video and audio taped interviews made by 7 different psychiatric trainees. The interviews studied were those conducted in the ordinary course of clinic work for diagnostic and therapeutic planning purposes by trainees when first seeing the parent or parents of a child newly referred to a psychiatric clinic. It was found that a directive style with specific probes and requests for detailed descriptions was associated with the obtaining of better-quality factual information than that associated with a more free-style approach. Interviewers who talked less and who made more use of open questions and checks tended to have more talkative informants. Double questions were liable to result in ambiguous answers, but multiple-choice questions did not appear to cause distortion and in some circumstances might be helpful.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 138 , Issue 4 , April 1981 , pp. 283 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1981 

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