The award will enable a number of pilot projects to be developed that will provide vital research experience, have considerable scientific merit in their own right, and will serve as a basis for the programmatic development of this work. The specific research goals, addressed within the Research Plan, can be summarized as follows: (a) The initial goal is to study the use of computers in psychiatric assessment. This will be achieved by two related studies of direct computer interviewing of adolescents. The first of these studies will assess if, as has been suggested, subjects report more frequently and in greater detail, episodes of suicidal ideation and behavior to a computer than to a person. The second will examine if adolescents can complete a complex structured interview, such as the DISC, without the need for a human interviewer. (b) The second goal is to produce a more accurate and valid general screening questionnaire (the ASQ) for psychiatric disorder in adolescents. This would employ weighted scoring of symptoms having high predictive value and would also integrate an assessment of social impairment. (c) The final component of the research plan is to examine the test-retest paradigm systematically, in particular the phenomenon of attenuation, and discover in a prospective experimental fashion just what can be done to improve the reliability of psychiatric measures.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Unknown (K20)
Project #
5K20MH001298-04
Application #
2674441
Study Section
Child Psychopathology and Treatment Review Committee (CPT)
Project Start
1995-04-01
Project End
2000-03-31
Budget Start
1998-04-01
Budget End
1999-03-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
1998
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Columbia University (N.Y.)
Department
Psychiatry
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
167204994
City
New York
State
NY
Country
United States
Zip Code
10032
Gould, Madelyn S; Velting, Drew; Kleinman, Marjorie et al. (2004) Teenagers' attitudes about coping strategies and help-seeking behavior for suicidality. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 43:1124-33
Lucas, C P; Zhang, H; Fisher, P W et al. (2001) The DISC Predictive Scales (DPS): efficiently screening for diagnoses. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 40:443-9
Friman, P C; Handwerk, M L; Smith, G L et al. (2000) External validity of conduct and oppositional defiant disorders determined by the NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule for children. J Abnorm Child Psychol 28:277-86