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To describe the NIMH Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (DISC) Version 2.3 and to provide data on its performance characteristics in the Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) Study.

Data were collected on the DISC-2.3 at four sites on 1,285 randomly selected children, aged 9 through 17 years, and their parents. Two hundred forty-seven of these child–parent pairs were reassessed on the DISC-2.3 by a clinician interviewer, 1 to 3 weeks later.

Administration time was approximately 1 hour and the interview was acceptable to more than 90% of subjects. The reliability of questions to parents assessing impairment and age of onset was generally good to acceptable for most diagnoses but was less satisfactory for the child interview. Using information from parent and child, the prevalence for any diagnosis ranged from 50.6 If no …