An investigation of the adequacy of psychiatric interviews conducted through an interpreter

Abstract

We evaluated clinical information gained directly from 10 English-speaking and from 10 non-English-speaking subjects both directly and through interpreter-mediated interviews. High levels of agreement between raters, when assessing both cohorts, were found for all data with a non-significant tendency towards better agreement in the Asian than the English-speaking sample for family history data. Analysis of the interview contents showed a number of errors of interpretation which were similar to those noted in previous studies. The addition of quantitative data represents a significant advantage over previous studies, allowing the qualitative results to be placed into perspective. Recommendations are made for optimising and avoiding the pitfalls of interpreter-mediated interviews.