We therefore conducted a study to examine empirically how often bipolar disorder might be over- and under-diagnosed. Seven hundred psychiatric outpatients were interviewed with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID) and completed a self-administered questionnaire that asked whether they had been previously diagnosed by a health-care professional with bipolar or manic-depressive disorder.
于是我们便展开了一项研究，从经验的层面来考察双相障碍被过度诊断和诊断不足的程度。我们用《美国精神障碍诊断与统计手册》（第4版）的结构化临床问卷 （即人格障碍诊断问卷SCID）对七百名精神病科的门诊病人进行了访问并让他们亲自填写了问卷，其内容是关于他们是否之前曾被医疗专业人员诊断为双相或狂躁—抑郁障碍。我们还从病人处获得了关于其近亲的家庭病史的信息。