Computer-assisted derivation of a screening interview for alcoholism.

A short screening interview for the diagnosis of alcoholism has been developed with the assistance of the automatic interaction detector (AID) program (a multivariate sequential analysis strategy) that is part of the OSIRIS statistical package. Retrospective and prospective tests of the effectiveness of the interview have shown that it permits a diagnosis of alcoholism with less effort than a larger, more comprehansive research interview. The performance of the screening and research interviews have been compared to assess the effects of severity of illness and reliability of individual replies on the diagnoses made by each interview.