title: Validation of the Italian Version of the Biological Rhythms Interview of Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (BRIAN): Some Considerations on its Screening Usefulness.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Abnormalities in biological rhythms (BR) may have a role in the pathophysiology of Bipolar Disorders (BD). The objective of this study is to validate the Italian version of the Biological Rhythms Interview of Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (BRIAN), a useful tool in studying BR, and measure its accuracy in discriminating BD.
  
  
  METHODS
  44 outpatients with DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of BD and 38 controls balanced for sex and age were consecutively recruited. The discriminant validity of BRIAN for the screening of BD and its test re-test reliability in two evaluations were assessed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  BD patients scored 22.22±11.19 in BRIAN against 7.13±5.6 of the control group (P<0.0001). BRIAN showed a good accuracy to screen between BD non-BD at cutoff 16, a sensitivity was 68.2 and specificity was 92.5. The test-retest stability measured using Pearson's coefficient found very high r values for each section and the total score, thus indicating a correlation at the two times of statistical significance in all measures. Cohen's Kappa varied from 0.47 in the sociality section to 0.80 in the sleep section, with a total K mean of 0.65.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results show that the Italian version of BRIAN has good discriminant validity in detecting BD from healthy controls and shows good test-retest reliability. The study suggests the possibility of developing mixed screening tools by introducing items on dysregulation of biological rhythms to the usual measures of mood.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Clinical and Molecular Medicine, University of Cagliari, Italy.
authors.forename: Maria F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Moro
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Clinical and Molecular Medicine, University of Cagliari, Italy.
authors.forename: Mauro G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Carta
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Clinical and Molecular Medicine, University of Cagliari, Italy.
authors.forename: Mirra
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pintus
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Clinical and Molecular Medicine, University of Cagliari, Italy.
authors.forename: Elisa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pintus
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health and Clinical and Molecular Medicine, University of Cagliari, Italy.
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Melis
authors.affiliation: Bipolar Disorders Program and Laboratory of Molecular Psychiatry, Hospital de Clinicas de Porto Alegre, Ramiro Barcelos 2350, 90035-000, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Flavio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Kapczinski
authors.affiliation: Bipolar Disorders Program, Institute of Neurosciences, Hospital Clinic Barcelona, IDIBAPS, CIBERSAM, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
authors.forename: Eduard
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Vieta
authors.affiliation: Bipolar Disorders Program, Institute of Neurosciences, Hospital Clinic Barcelona, IDIBAPS, CIBERSAM, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
authors.forename: Francesc
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Colom
keywords: BRIAN; Biological rhythms; Italian screening; bipolar disorders; validation.