Two Methods of Psychiatric Interviewing: Telephone and Face-To-Face

Summary Studied the effects of telephone and face-to-face interviews on the quantity and quality of historical information obtained from informants of psychiatric patients. Whenever possible the closest available relative of 105 consecutive admissions between the ages of 20-34 was interviewed by a social scientist using a semistructured psychiatric interview consisting of 88 questions. A total of 85 informants were interviewed, 50 face-to-face and 35 by telephone. The two groups of informants were similar in all characteristics possibly associated with knowledge of the patient and willingness to provide information. The information elicited by one method was not significantly different from the information elicited by the other in either quantity or quality. Our results indicate that the amount or quality of historical psychiatric data collected from informants was not related to the technique used.