the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) is a short diagnostic structured interview (DSI) designed to generate positive diagnosis for the main Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)-III-R/IV Axis I disorders and to explore the symptoms of Criterion A for Schizophrenia (Sc) to rule out the presence of Psychotic Disorders. The procedural validity of the MINI was investigated in psychiatric patients using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) as a gold standard in Europe and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID-P)in the US. This paper presents the concordance and the reasons for discordance between the MINI and the CIDI for DSM-III-R Psychotic and Mood Disorders. No study had systematically analysed the sources of disagreement between DSI based on the same operational criteria in psychotic patients.

256 consecutively recruited psychiatric patients and 50 non-psychiatric subjects passed the MINI and the CIDI.

concordance was good for the presence of Major Depressive Episode (MDE), Manic Episode, Psychotic Disorders, syndromes or symptoms (0.65 to 0.82). Inconsistencies in evaluation of the disorder recency accounted for 25 to 40% of discordance for current diagnoses. Fifty-three percent of discordance for lifetime Manic Episode resulted from inconsistencies in the severity of the index episode. Fifty percent of discordance for the diagnosis of Psychotic Disorders was due to algorithmic differences between the two DSI.

the MINI yields reliable DSM-III-R diagnoses within a short time frame (22 minutes). Depending on the quantitative and the qualitative analyses of discrepancies between the MINI and the CIDI for Psychotic Disorders and Mood Episodes, we proposed and tested modifications leading to improvements in both interviews. The procedural validity of the modified MINI according to the modified CIDI was found to be very good.