Diagnosis of psychiatric disorder in elderly general and geriatric hospital patients: Agecat and dsm‐III‐r compared

Physically ill elderly patients ( N = 236) in a geriatric and a general hospital were interviewed with the Geriatric Mental State (GMS) schedule. Psychiatric diagnoses made by the computer programme ‘AGECAT’ were compared with those made by a psychiatrist who applied DSM‐III‐R diagnostic criteria to the GMS data. Overall kappa for all diagnostic groups was 0.78. Agreement was excellent for organic diagnoses and good for depression. GMS‐AGECAT can be used with confidence to detect common psychiatric disorders in physically ill elderly general and geriatric hospital patients.