Objective-To determine the accuracy of psychiatric diagnoses made by two community psychogeriatric teams operating a multidisciplinary assessment procedure.Design-Comparison of team diagnosis with independent formal assessment and consensus diagnosis by research psychiatrists.Setting-Two community psychogeriatric teams with similar operational policies in an inner London health district.Subjects-100 people aged 65-90 (70 women) newly referred to the teams.Main outcome measures-Concordance between team and research diagnoses.Results-Agreement between team and research diagnoses ranged from 90% to 99% for the specific psychiatric disorders studied. There was no significant difference between medical and non-medical team members in their diagnostic performance compared with the research psychiatrists. Increased diagnostic accuracy by team members was associated with longer experience ofteam working, regardless ofthe team members' professional background.Conclusions-The multidisciplinary approach to the assessment of referrals to these community teams for the elderly is not associated with misdiagnosis ofpsychiatric disorder.

The psychiatric treatment decisions made by two multidisciplinary psychogeriatric teams in 100 new referrals were compared with those made by a group of psychiatrists following independent formal research assessments. There was satisfactory agreement between the team and research decisions with regard to psychiatric hospital admission, antidepressant treatment and neuroleptic treatment. Agreement was less good for psychological treatments.