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Purpose: The Longitudinal Interval Follow-up Evaluation (LIFE) is an integrated system for assessing the longitudinal course of psychiatric disorders.

 

Description: The LIFE consists of a semistructured interview, an Instruction booklet, a coding sheet, and a set of training materials. An interviewer uses the LIFE to collect detailed psychosocial, psychopathologic, and treatment information for a six-month follow-up interval. The weekly psychopathology measures ("psychiatric status ratings") are ordinal symptom-based scales with categories defined to match the levels of symptoms used in the Research Diagnostic Criteria. The ratings provide a separate, concurrent record of the course of each disorder initially diagnosed in patients or developing during the follow-up. Any DSM-III or Research Diagnostic Criteria disorder can be rated with the LIFE, and any length or number of follow-up intervals can be accommodated. The psychosocial and treatment information is recorded so that these data can be linked temporally to the psychiatric status ratings.

 

Comment: The LIFE should be administered by trained raters with experience in structured clinical interviews and criterion-based diagnostic systems.

 

Primary Dependent Measures: 3 or 6 point scale for criteria

 

Time Estimates: 45 minutes to 4 hours

 

Vendor: permission from Brown University