Reliable use of the Present State Examination by psychiatric nurses for clinical studies of psychotic and nonpsychotic patients.

Four psychiatric nurses were trained with the French version of the Present State Examination, 9th edition (PSE-9). Reliability was tested on 18 cases of psychotic and nonpsychotic patients. The reliability indexes were comparable to those reported for the English version of PSE-9. These preliminary results indicate that further training may improve reliability for the nurses. It also warrants other trials in which psychiatric nurses will be used as interviewer with instruments that require clinical judgement.