Mental Disorder Among Homeless and Poor People: A Comparison of Assessment Methods

This study assessed mental disorders among 144homeless and poor adults using four different methods:(a) history of psychiatric hospitalization, (b)structured clinical interview, (c) self-report symptom checklist, and (d) interviewer ratings. Thesefour methods yielded divergent estimates of mentalillness, ranging from 3-70%. Correlations assessing thedegree of overlap among the measures were generally modest in magnitude. The results suggest thatthe variation in rates of mental illness across existingstudies is due to methodological differences and that,with the exception of the structured interview, the various methods fail to adequatelydistinguish mental disorder from substanceabuse.