A clinical interview is “a conversation with a purpose.”

1. Clinical Interviews
By: Prabhleen Arora

2. Clinical Interview
Imagine that you are a psychologist and
Samantha comes to see you. Just looking at
her, you can't tell what's wrong with her or
why she has come to your office. What do you
do? You probably answered, 'I talk to her, of
course!' Talking to Maria is a good first step in
figuring out what's wrong and how to treat her.

4. Clinical Interview
A clinical interview is a dialogue between
psychologist and patient that is designed to help
the psychologist diagnose and plan treatment for
the patient. It is often called 'a conversation with
a purpose.'
It is a tool that helps physicians, psychologists
and researchers make an accurate diagnosis of a
variety of mental illnesses, such as obsessive-
compulsive disorder (OCD).

5. The focus of an interview depends on the
interviewer’s theoretical orientation. Interviews
can be either unstructured or structured:
In unstructured interviews, clinicians ask open-
ended questions.
In structured interviews, clinicians ask
prepared questions, often from a published
interview schedule.

6. Strength and Purposes of the Clinical
Interview
To communicate and clarify the assessment
process.
Understand the Client’s Expectations.
Obtain the information about the past and current
events in the family.
Document the context, severity and the chronicity
of the problematic behaviors.
Use flexible procedure to ask questions.
Resolve ambiguous responses.

7. Types of Clinical Interviews
 There are many types of clinical interviews that can be
used at different times and with different people.
 The two most common types are:-
 a) Intake interview: It happens the first time someone
comes to see you. This is the interview where you, as
the psychologist, ask what brings them to you, what
their mental and physical health history is and what
they would like to get out of their time with you.

8. b) Mental status exam: It is a clinical interview that
looks at more than just the answers to your
questions. You can look at a patient's behaviors,
appearance, attitude and movements, as well as their
answers to your questions. All of these things will
give you a good view of what their mental health is
like.
Of course, a mental status exam can be used on any
patient, including those who seem lucid, like
Samantha, but it is often used on patients who are
not able to talk clearly about their problems.

9. Advantages of Clinical Interviews
The main advantages of interviews are:
They are useful to obtain detailed information
about personal feelings, perceptions and opinions.
They allow more detailed questions to be asked.
They usually achieve a high response rate.
Respondents' own words are recorded.
Ambiguities can be clarified and incomplete
answers followed up.

10. Disadvantages of Clinical Interviews
They can be very time-consuming: setting up,
interviewing, transcribing, analyzing,
feedback, reporting
Different interviewers may understand and
transcribe interviews in different ways.
They can be costly.

11. References
https://study.com/academy/lesson/clinical-
interviews-in-psychological-assessment-
purpose-process-limitations.html
https://www.slideshare.net/drlindafoster/princi
ples-of-clinical-interviews-73876721
http://www.tipps.co.in/wp-
content/uploads/2015/08/PROFORMA-FOR-
EXAMINATION-OF-UNCOOPERATIVE-
PATIENTS.pdf