Structured Interviews in Clinical Assessment: A Teaching Course on Basic Diagnostic Skills Put to the Test

Aim: The present study describes the evaluation of a university bachelor's course on diagnostics of mental disorders in children and adolescents with regard to the skills acquired by students using a structured interview (Kinder-DIPS-OA). Method: Fifty-two psychology students participated in the evaluation of the course. The content represented an abbreviated form of the standardized training on the Kinder-DIPS-OA. At the end of the course, we determined the percentage agreement of the ICD-10 diagnoses of the students after receiving a video interview with the previously determined diagnosis by the instructor. For a simulated interview, sources of error and weaknesses of the students in the independent conduct of the interview were coded by the instructor in percentage according to previously defined sources of error. Results: All students correctly coded the primary disorder, but 84.7% missed the comorbid symptomatology. Only 11.5% of the students identified the correct ICD-10 combined disorder. The main difficulties in conducting the interview were to adequately explore the criteria and to make a clinical assessment based on the respondent's answers. Conclusions: The course succeeded in training students in the Kinder-DIPS-OA to the point where they could make reliable diagnoses based on a technically sound interview. However, typical difficulties arose during practical implementation that compromised the reliability and validity of the diagnoses. In order to better prepare students for clinical-diagnostic practice after their new licensing master's program, university teaching must improve here and establish more practice-oriented teaching concepts. (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by S. Karger AG, Basel