The interrater reliability of the Structured Interview for DSM-IV Personality

We examined the joint interview interrater reliability of the Structured Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Personality Disorders (SIDP-IV) in 433 non–treatment-seeking military recruits. Reliability was computed for the diagnosis of a specific personality disorder (PD) and for the number of PD criteria present, and computed using a dimensional score. Reliability increased when PDs were computed using dimensional scores rather than categorical scores. Avoidant and dependent PDs demonstrated the highest interrater reliability, whereas schizoid and schizotypal showed the lowest. This large sample allowed us to perform item-level analyses of the SIDP-IV. Interrater reliability for each of the PD criteria was generally more than 0.70, with the notable exception of criteria scored through observation only. Overall, the SIDP-IV demonstrated good reliability in a non–treatment-seeking population.