The Biographical Personality Interview (BPI)--a new approach to the assessment of premorbid personality in psychiatric research. Part I: Development of the instrument.
The Biographical Personality Interview (BPI) is a research instrument for the retrospective assessment of premorbid personality traits of psychiatric patients. Its construction is based on results of a series of investigations in which biographical data from psychiatric case notes were analysed with respect to premorbid personality traits. In order to avoid methodological shortcomings of the utilisation of clinical records, an interview technique was developed. It is applied by two independent, specially trained investigators who are kept "blind" regarding any clinical data of the subject under study. One of them has to conduct the interview of a clinically remitted patient and to provide an interview protocol, the other one has to rate personality traits from that protocol along a large series of purely descriptive items. Sum scores for six personality structures ("types") are calculated and the case is then assigned to the intra-individually dominating personality type according to the highest of these scores.
Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Clinical Institute, Munich, Germany.
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von Zerssen
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Pössl
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Hecht
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Black
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Garczynski
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Barthelmes
D001680:Biographies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008487:Medical History Taking / Q000379:methods*; D010551:Personality / Q000145:classification*; D010552:Personality Assessment; D010554:Personality Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011594:Psychometrics; D012647:Self-Assessment