Brief PANSS to assess and monitor the overall severity of schizophrenia.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of the present study was to develop a subscale of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) that would be brief and sensitive to changes in the clinical features of schizophrenia (i.e. the Brief PANSS, or bPANSS).


METHODS
The PANSS before and after treatment, and the Clinical Global Impression-Change (CGI-C) was rated for 714 schizophrenia patients. Of these, Clinical Global Impression-Severity (CGI-S) was also evaluated in 30 of these patients. The bPANSS items were extracted from full PANSS items based on the following aims: (i) to develop a brief scale; (ii) to develop a scale sensitive to changes resulting from antipsychotic treatment; and (iii) to reflect the broad spectrum of schizophrenia symptoms.


RESULTS
The following six items were extracted to serve as the bPANSS: delusion, suspiciousness, emotional withdrawal, passive/apathetic social withdrawal, tension, and unusual thought content. The coefficients of correlation between the bPANSS and full PANSS before and after treatment were 0.86 and 0.92, respectively (both P < 0.001). The coefficient of correlation between the degrees of change in the scores for the bPANSS and the full PANSS was 0.93 (P < 0.001), and that between delta bPANSS and CGI-C was 0.73 (P < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
bPANSS is able to capture the overall clinical features of schizophrenia within a short assessment period.
Yamamoto
Nobutomo
N
Seiwa Hospital, Institute of Neuropsychiatry, Tokyo, Japan. ravonal@hotmail.com
Inada
Toshiya
T
Shimodera
Shinji
S
Morokuma
Ippei
I
Furukawa
Toshiaki A
TA
D000328:Adult; D014150:Antipsychotic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000188:drug therapy; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013997:Time Factors
D014150:Antipsychotic Agents