BPRS Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale

The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) is a tool clinicians or researchers use to measure psychiatric symptoms such as anxiety, depression, and psychoses.

Persons having or suspected of having schizophrenia or other psychotic disorder manifest the disorder in multiple ways. The BPRS assesses the level of 18 symptom constructs such as hostility, suspiciousness, hallucination, and grandiosity. It is particularly useful in gauging the efficacy of treatment in patients who have moderate to severe psychoses.

It is based on the clinician's interview with the patient and observations of the patient's behavior over the previous 2-3 days. The patient's family can also provide the behavior report.

The rater enters a number for each symptom construct that ranges from 1 (not present) to 7 (extremely severe). The time necessary to complete the interview and scoring can be as little as 20-30 minutes.