The Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) Version IV is a fully structured questionnaire designed to ascertain the presence or absence of major psychiatric disorders as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV]; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1994). Earlier versions of the DIS have been used since 1980 to reflect earlier versions of the DSM. These include versions of the DIS designed to reflect DSM-III (APA, 1980) and DSM-III-R (APA, 1987). Like the earlier versions, the DIS Version IV attempts to mimic a clinical interview by using questions to determine whether psychiatric symptoms endorsed by a respondent are clinically significant and are not explained by medical conditions or substance use.

The DIS must be administered by trained interviewers, but these interviewers do not have to be clinicians. Due to the fully specified nature of the DIS, nonclinicians may administer the DIS with adequate reliability and validity. Thus, in many situations, the expense and complication of using clinicians to interview patients is not necessary when using the DIS.

The DIS is based on the logic and background of DSM-IV. This means that the strengths and weaknesses of such a diagnostic system are inherent in the DIS. The strength is that the diagnoses in DSM-IV have been developed based on nosological data and consensus among experts. The approach in DSM-IV is fundamentally grounded in a bio-psycho-social approach to psychopathology, which does not include inference about causation of symptoms (except in such cases as post-traumatic stress disorder or the substance-induced conditions in which the etiological agent is a specific external phenomenon). On the other hand, the weakness of strict adherence to a particular diagnostic system is that over time, research may demonstrate that other ways of classifying persons with psychiatric symptoms may be more effective. Thus, data collected using a particular diagnostic system may become obsolete over the course of a longitudinal study.