History of the IPDE

One of the aims of the World Health Organization (WHO) and US National Institutes of Health (NIH) joint program on psychiatric diagnosis and classification is the development and standardization of diagnostic assessment instruments for use in clinical research around the world. The IPDE is a semistructured clinical interview developed within that program, and designed to assess the personality disorders in the ICD-10 and DSM-IV classification systems.

The IPDE is an outgrowth and modification for international use of the Personality Disorder Examination (PDE). To facilitate the development of the IPDE, beginning in 1985 several workshops were convened. At these meetings representatives of the international psychiatric community discussed the format of the interview, the wording of items, and the development of a scoring manual. Translations were undertaken and frequent revisions made to reflect the experience of interviewers with trial versions. Finally, a field trial was undertaken in 1988 and 1989 at 14 participating centres in 11 countries in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

In August 1991 the principal investigators in the field trial met at WHO headquarters in Geneva to discuss the results and the experience of the interviewers with the IPDE. This resulted in some minor revisions of existing items. Subsequently additional modifications were made to accommodate the transition from DSM-III-R to DSM-IV. To offset concerns about the length of the interview, and to make it more acceptable to a wider range of clinicians and investigators, it was decided to issue the IPDE in modules.