Structured Clinical Interview
for the DSM-5 (SCID-5) (co-author)
The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID-5) is a semistructured interview guide for making the major DSM-5 diagnoses. It is administered by a clinician or trained mental health professional who is familiar with the DSM-5 classification and diagnostic criteria. The interview subjects may be either psychiatric or general medical patients—or individuals who do not identify themselves as patients, such as participants in a community survey of mental illness or family members of psychiatric patients.
Three different versions of the SCID-5 are available for diagnosing the major DSM-5 diagnoses.
Why Use SCID-5?
- To ensure that the major DSM-5 diagnoses are systematically evaluated. For example, the SCID can be used in clinical intake procedures or in comprehensive forensic diagnostic evaluation.
- To improve interviewing skills of students in the mental health professions, including psychiatry, psychology, social work, and psychiatric nursing. For example, the SCID can provide trainees with a repertoire of useful questions to elicit information from a patient that will be the basis for making judgments about the diagnostic criteria. Through repeated administrations of the SCID, students will become familiar with the DSM-5 criteria and at the same time will incorporate useful questions into their own interviewing repertoire.
- To characterize a study population in terms of current and previous psychiatric diagnoses. For example, the diagnostic data that have been obtained using the SCID interview can be utilized by researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and the general public that are interested in prevalence and incidence estimates of psychiatric disorders among certain populations.
- To select a study population. For example, in a study of the effectiveness of a treatment for depression, the SCID-5 can be used to ensure that all of the study subjects have symptoms that meet the DSM-5 criteria for Major Depressive Disorder and that all of the subjects with a history of any Substance Use Disorder in the past 12 months are excluded.
