Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, 426 Thompson St, Ann Arbor, MI48104-2321, USA.
Department of Psychiatry and Psychiatric and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Unit, Harvard Medical School; Center for Genomic Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
Psychol Med. 2020 Feb;50(3):515-522. doi: 10.1017/S0033291719000394. Epub 2019 Mar 11.
Retrospective reports of lifetime experience with mental disorders greatly underestimate the actual experiences of disorder because recall error biases reporting of earlier life symptoms downward. This fundamental obstacle to accurate reporting has many adverse consequences for the study and treatment of mental disorders. Better tools for accurate retrospective reporting of mental disorder symptoms have the potential for broad scientific benefits.
We designed a life history calendar (LHC) to support this task, and randomized more than 1000 individuals to each arm of a retrospective diagnostic interview with and without the LHC. We also conducted a careful validation with the Structured Clinical Interview for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition.
Results demonstrate that-just as with frequent measurement longitudinal studies-use of an LHC in retrospective measurement can more than double reports of lifetime experience of some mental disorders.
The LHC significantly improves retrospective reporting of mental disorders. This tool is practical for application in both large cross-sectional surveys of the general population and clinical intake of new patients.
回顾性报告一生中经历的精神障碍极大地低估了实际的障碍体验，因为回忆错误会使早期症状的报告向下偏倚。这种准确报告的基本障碍对精神障碍的研究和治疗有许多不利影响。用于准确回顾性报告精神障碍症状的更好工具具有广泛的科学益处。
我们设计了一个生命史日历（LHC）来支持这项任务，并将 1000 多人随机分配到有和没有 LHC 的回顾性诊断访谈的每个臂中。我们还使用《精神障碍诊断与统计手册第四版的结构临床访谈》进行了仔细验证。
结果表明——就像频繁测量的纵向研究一样——在回顾性测量中使用 LHC 可以使某些精神障碍的终身经历报告增加一倍以上。
LHC 显著改善了精神障碍的回顾性报告。该工具在一般人群的大型横断面调查和新患者的临床摄入中都具有实际应用价值。
