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The Brief Symptom Inventory: an introductory report

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Leonard R. Derogatis  and
Nick Melisaratos
Leonard R. Derogatis*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Nick Melisaratos
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr L. R. Derogatis, Division of Medical Psychology, Department of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Adolf Meyer Building, Room 200, 600 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
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Synopsis

This is an introductory report for the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), a brief psychological self-report symptom scale. The BSI was developed from its longer parent instrument, the SCL-90-R, and psychometric evaluation reveals it to be an acceptable short alternative to the complete scale. Both test-retest and internal consistency reliabilities are shown to be very good for the primary symptom dimensions of the BSI, and its correlations with the comparable dimensions of the SCL-90-R are quite high. In terms of validation, high convergence between BSI scales and like dimensions of the MMPI provide good evidence of convergent validity, and factor analytic studies of the internal structure of the scale contribute evidence of construct validity. Several criterion-oriented validity studies have also been completed with this instrument

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , August 1983 , pp. 595 - 605
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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