title: The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale--Spanish adaptation.
abstract: The Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) consists of a formalized clinical interview and 30 operationally defined items for psychopathology assessment. We report here on the psychometric equivalence of a Spanish language adaptation (PANSS-S), developed to facilitate minority group, multinational, and cross-cultural studies on schizophrenia. Two bilingual psychiatrists simultaneously rated 57 psychiatric inpatients using the PANSS (N = 20), PANSS-S (N = 20), or both methods (N = 17). The PANSS-S demonstrated sound interrater reliabilities (r = .93 for positive and .74 for negative syndrome, p less than .001), which were similar to those from the current PANSS assessment and original standardization studies. In support of criterion-related validity, the means and variance of the two instruments were comparable, and significant cross-correlations were obtained for the principal scales (r = .92 for positive and .83 for negative syndrome, p less than .0001), component symptoms, and five additional psychopathology clusters. The results suggest that the PANSS-S has psychometric properties resembling those of the PANSS and may be used interchangeably in a Spanish-speaking population.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York.
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Kay
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fiszbein
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vital-Herne
authors.forename: L S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Fuentes
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000818:Animals; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008913:Minority Groups; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D011594:Psychometrics; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis*; D012565:Schizophrenic Psychology; D013030:Spain / Q000208:ethnology