[Development and verification of the Spanish version of the "scanning system" psychiatric interview ("Questionnaires for clinical evaluation in neuropsychiatry"].

The SCAN System (Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry) represents the latest stage in a 30 year line of development. It is a set of instruments aimed at assessing, measuring and classifying the psychopathology and behaviour associated with the mayor psychiatric disorders of adult life. The SCAN System has several components: the SCAN interview, the Glossary of differential definitions, the CATEGO5 program and the CAPSE (Computer Assisted PSE versión). This latest element is a computerised versión of the System, combining the SCAN's interview, Glossary and CATEGO5. The SCAN interview has 3 components, the tenth edition of the Present State Examination (PSE10), the Item Group Checklist (IGC) and the Clinical History Schedule (CHS), whose main features are described in the paper. The CATEGO5 suite of computer programs consists in a set of utilities concerned with data entry and diagnosis. The Entry program is used to enter data recorded manually during a SCAN interview and the diagnosis programs derive diagnosis according to ICD-10 and DSM-III-R/DSM-IV criteria. This report analyses the main methods and results of the "Field Trials" that took place in 20 Centres of different countries. These studies showed that the diagnosis and symptoms scores have a high degree of reliability and that this is also applicable to the spanish version. In conclusion, we consider that the SCAN System is once of the more suitable psychiatric diagnostic instruments currently available.