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Evaluation of the Routine Clinical Use of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS)

Bark, Nigel MD^*; Florida, Danielle MD^†; Gera, Nikhil MD^‡; Varardi, Rodica MD^*; Harghel, Luminita MD^§; Adlington, Katherine^∥

Author Information

^*Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, and Bronx Psychiatric Center

^†Bronx Psychiatric Center and the Langton Centre, South East Sydney Illawarra Health Service, Sydney, Australia

^‡Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, Bronx Psychiatric Center, and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles

^§Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, Bronx Psychiatric Center, and private practice, Queen's, New York

^∥Bronx Psychiatric Center and King's College Hospital, London

Please send correspondence to: Nigel Bark, MD, Bronx Psychiatric Center, 1500 Waters Place, Bronx, New York 10461. [email protected]

This study received no funding and the authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Data from this study were presented as a poster at the XIIIth Biennial Winter Workshop on Schizophrenia Research, Davos, Switzerland, Feb 2006.

Journal of Psychiatric Practice 17(4):p 300-303, July 2011. | DOI: 10.1097/01.pra.0000400269.68160.e6

Abstract

Objective

To evaluate the routine clinical use of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) (in psychiatrists' monthly notes) and the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS) (done at admission and annually) in a state hospital.

Methods

Two residents and a medical student were trained in the use of the BPRS and the AIMS. These “key raters” then rated 21 patients before and 28 patients after the ward psychiatrists had one retraining session on the BPRS. These raters' results were compared with the ward psychiatrists' results before and after the BPRS retraining as well as with the ward psychiatrists' annual AIMS ratings.

Results

The key raters had high correlations among themselves (0.85 for total BPRS and a mean of 0.83 for individual BPRS items), but the correlations with the ward psychiatrists' ratings were very low (0.17 for total BPRS and a mean of 0.37 for individual BPRS items), and those correlations improved only slightly after the retraining of the ward psychiatrists (0.33 for total BPRS and a mean of 0.41 for individual BPRS items). Ward psychiatrists both missed tardive dyskinesia and labelled parkinsonism as tardive dyskinesia.

Conclusions

The BPRS and AIMS are useful, practical rating scales, but if they are to be used routinely in clinical care, users must be regularly trained and retrained and rating performance evaluated. (Journal of Psychiatric Practice 2011;17:300–303).

Article Keywords

Keywords
outcome assessment, rating scales, Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS), schizophrenia

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Evaluation of the Routine Clinical Use of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS)