The Effect of Interviewer Characteristics on Responses to a Mental Health Interview

This paper assesses the proportion of variance due to interviewer effects in responses to a mental health interview and investigates the extent to which such variations were due to specific interviewer characteristics. The total interviewer effects studied accounted for from 0% to 5% of the variance; positive responses to psychological symptom scales increased with interviewer age and experience and were related to low interviewer symptom levels. It is suggested that interviewers who are older, have interviewing experience, and have lower symptom levels create a relaxed, friendly atmosphere that decreases respondents' reticence to report personal feelings and experiences. Despite the fact that interviewer effects explain relatively little of the variance, analyses within subgroups of the sample indicate that the characteristics of interviewers used can have important influences on inferences made from the data.