It was created for the purpose of being able to quickly assess the patient’s psychiatric symptoms prior, during, or following a treatment.
Sixteen factors were found from the analysis, which served as the building blocks for the BPRS.
[2] The BPRS consists of 18 items measuring the following factors: It uses a seven-item Likert scale with the following values: The test is administered in tandem with a series of interviews conducted by at least two clinicians to ensure interrater reliability of the assessment.
[2][3] The BPRS is intended for use on adult psychiatric patients and has been validated for use in elderly populations.
[5] An expanded version of the test was created in 1993 by D. Lukoff, Keith H. Nuechterlein, and Joseph Ventura.