It was published in 1987 by Stanley Kay, Lewis Opler, and Abraham Fiszbein.
The scale is the "gold standard" for evaluating the effects of psychopharmacological treatments.
[5] To assess a patient using PANSS, an approximately 45-minute clinical interview is conducted.
The patient is rated from 1 to 7 on 30 different symptoms based on the interview as well as reports of family members or primary care hospital workers.
In their original publication on the PANSS scale, Stanley Kay and colleagues tested the scale on 101 adult patients (20-68 years-old) with schizophrenia[4] and the mean scores were, Based on meta-analytic results, an alternative five-factor solution of the PANSS was proposed with positive symptoms, negative symptoms, disorganization, excitement, and emotional distress.