title: A shortened psychophysical task to quantify irritability: the Reactive Irritability Scale II (RIS-II).
abstract: The Reactive Irritability Scale (RIS) uses magnitude estimation to measure reactive irritability. Respondents rate target sounds in comparison to a neutral reference sound. The RIS proved more sensitive than self-report measures to detect irritability associated with withdrawal from cigarette smoking and with exposure to a stressful environment, but was too long (30 min) for routine use. We report here on a shortened version (13 min)--RIS-II. The RIS-II exhibited robust test-retest reliability and correlated strongly with the original RIS (Study 1). In Study 2, the RIS-II was administered to subjects who experienced psychological stress and then were exposed to progressive relaxation, music, cognitive tasks, or silence; the Progressive Relaxation group was the most irritable. In Study 3, the RIS-II was administered to chronic pain patients. Pain patients found the sounds less irritating than did controls with the exception of the reference sound; repeated presentation of the reference sound increased irritability. These studies indicate that the RIS-II is a reliable instrument that may have utility for the measurement of irritability in laboratory and clinical settings. In addition, these studies indicate that the RIS-II is understandable by individuals of different ages who are from educationally- and culturally-diverse backgrounds and individuals who are healthy as well as individuals suffering from chronic medical conditions who are on multiple medications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA. mfaraday@usuhs.mil
authors.forename: Martha M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Faraday
authors.forename: Peter M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Scheufele
authors.forename: Kelly J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Vander Ley
authors.forename: Neil E
authors.initials: NE
authors.lastname: Grunberg
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D003710:Demography; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007508:Irritable Mood; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010146:Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D011601:Psychophysics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014796:Visual Perception