Citation

Liddell B, Silove D, Tay K, Tam N, Nickerson A, Brooks R, Rees S, Zwi AB, Steel Z. J. Affect. Disord. 2013; 150(3): 1242-1246.

Affiliation

Psychiatry Research and Teaching Unit (PRTU), School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales, NSW Australia; School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, 2052, Australia. Electronic address: b.liddell@unsw.edu.au.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.jad.2013.06.006

PMID

23835102

Abstract

BACKGROUND: There is growing research interest in understanding and analyzing explosive forms of anger. General epidemiological studies have focused on the DSM-IV category of Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED), while refugee and post-conflict research have used culturally-based indices of explosive anger. The aim of this study was to test the convergence of a culturally-sensitive community measure of explosive anger with a structured clinical interview diagnosis of IED in Timor-Leste, a country with a history of significant mass violence and displacement. METHODS: A double-blind clinical concordance study was conducted amongst a stratified community sample in post-conflict Timor-Leste (n=85) to compare a community measure of anger against the Structured Clinical Interview (SCID) module for IED. RESULTS: Clinical concordance between the two measures was high: the area under the curve (AUC) index was 0.90 (95% CI: 0.83-0.98); sensitivity and specificity were 93.3% and 87.5% respectively. LIMITATIONS: Response rates were modest due to the participant's time commitments. CONCLUSIONS: It is possible to achieve convergence between culturally-sensitive measures of explosive anger and the DSM-IV construct of IED, allowing comparison of findings across settings and populations.

Language: en