This paper describes the PTSD Interview (PTSD‐I). It was developed to meet four specifications: (a) close correspondence to DSM‐III standards; (b) binary present/absent and continuous severity/frequency outputs on each symptom and the entire syndrome; (c) administrable by trained subprofessionals; and (d) substantial reliability and validity. It was written to meet the first three criteria. It demonstrated very high internal consistency (alpha = 0.92) and test‐retest reliability (Total score r = 0.95; diagnostic agreement = 87%). It correlated strongly with parallel DIS criteria (Total score vs. DIS diagnosis rbis = 0.94, sensitivity = 0.89, specificity = 0.94, overall hit rate = 0.92, and kappa = 0.84). Earlier studies revealed correlations with a military stress scale and Keane et al.'s MMPI PTSD subscale. It is apparently the only PTSD instrument that meets all of the above criteria.

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A number of writers have published data suggesting that schizophrenics are particularly likely to have been born in the winter months. Lewis and Griffin have argued that this "seasonally" effect may be an artifact resulting from (a) the use of inappropriate expected values in the calculation of chi-squares in previous studies; (b) the age-incidence effect-the tendency of risk to increase with time in disorders whose incidence increases with age; and (c) the ageprevalence effect-the fact that people born early in a reporting period have been at risk for any disease longer than those born later in that period. We studied the birth months of 3,556 schizophrenics at a Minnesota Veterans Administration hospital before and after instituting corrections for year-to-year across-month variations in birthrates in our expected values and the age-prevalence bias toward the January-March seasonality effect described in some earlier studies. Finally, we reanalyzed our data on a subset of patients in whom the age-incidence effect should be minimal. Even after these corrections the results supported the contention that the winter birthrate for schizophrenics is excessive, at least in severe climates.More than a dozen papers have appeared describing seasonality effects in schizophrenia-reported tendencies for an excessive number of schizophrenic births to occur in the winter months. This research is particularly important because it suggests that season-related factors-winter cold, summer heat, infectious diseases, prenatal nutritional deficiencies, and so forth-may play a role in the development of schizophrenia.Recently, Lewis and Griffin (1981) have argued that the seasonality effect may be an artifact resulting from three weaknesses in the designs of studies in which it has been reported. First, they point out (as had Hare, 1975) that the expected values used in the chi-squares employed to determine whether the frequency of schizophrenic births in the winter months is proportionately higher than that for the general population are typically based on a pool of many years and do not

The scores of DSM‐III‐diagnosed post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients (N = 116), psychiatric patients who did not meet the criteria, and normals (N = 19) on the Keane, Malloy, and Fairbank (1984) PTSD and Penk Combat scales for the MMPI were compared. The Keane scale discriminated PTSD‐positive patients from normals at a substantial level of accuracy (ω2 = .23; mean hit rate = 80.50%) and PTSD‐positive from PTSD‐negative patients at a more modest level (ω2 = .09; mean hit rate = 64%). The scores of the PTSD‐positive and PTSD‐negative patients were considerably lower than those of Keane et al.'s (1984) samples, which sugggests that local norms may be needed to facilitate their interpretation. The Penk Combat Intensity scale, which was correlated highly with the Keane scale, differentiated the PTSD‐positive patients from both the normals and the PTSD‐negative patients, but with less differentiating power (ω2's = .07 and .08). The Penk Combat Exposure scale did not separate the groups.

The authors factor analyzed DSM‐III‐based post‐traumatic stress disorder symptom ratings made on 131 Vietnam‐veteran PTSD patients. Five factors – termed Intrusive Thoughts and Their Effects, Increased Arousal, Impoverished Relationships, Guilt, and Cognitive Interference – emerged. The factor structure gave more support to Laufer, Brett and Gallops' conceptualization of PTSD than to the Horowitz, DSM‐III, or DSM‐III‐R systems. It also generated suggestions for future editions of the diagnostic manual.