[Multinational validation of the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI)].

The Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) is a fully structured diagnostic interview developed by the "Joint Project of World Health Organization (WHO) and Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration (ADAMHA) on Diagnosis and Classification of Mental Disorders and Alcohol and Drug Related Problems". Its main features are: it is devised for use in epidemiological and trans-cultural fields, can be used also by non-medical staff, has a modular structure, and gives diagnoses simultaneously according to ICD-10 and DSM-III-R, covering respectively 39 and 32 diagnoses on Axis I. This paper explains the validation study which was performed simultaneously in 20 different Countries under the competence of WHO applying a traditional interviewer-observer protocol. The reliability indexes which were obtained are among the highest reported in the current literature for similar instruments, and good levels of trans-cultural applicability and feasibility were demonstrated. CIDI therefore proved to be a very precise and reliable diagnostic instrument.