A comparison of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale and the REHAB scale in a long stay population

Abstract

The Brief psychiatric Rating Scale, BPRS (Overall and Gorham 1962), is a widely used measure of patient symptomatology in psychiatric research. A search of the psychological abstracts revealed some 956 studies using this scale. However apart from the initial work on developing the scale, few studies have examined its validity as a measure. The aim of the present thesis was to examine the validity of the BPRS in terms of its ability to predict a range of behaviours in a sample of the long stay residents of Porirua Hospital. The measure of functional behaviour used for comparison was the REHAB scale, (Hall and Baker, 1984) which provided a functional assessment of several different types of behaviour. The results indicated that the BPRS did not predict functional behaviour well, in terms of General Behaviour, or Deviant Behaviour. Low correlations were found between factors of the BPRS and factors of the REHAB. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the structured clinical interview, and for methods of gaining accurate information on psychiatric patients. The wider implications of the relationship between symptoms, as assessed by the BPRS, and functional behaviour is also discussed in relation to a theory of coping proposed by Anthony and Liberman (1988). A full description of the population sample, is also given. Little is known about this group as a whole and the current research provides a timely picture of the long stay patients of Porirua Hospital. Planning issues regarding this population are also discussed particularly in terms of institutionalisation and deinstitutionalisation.