Brief Symptom Inventory

The efficient Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) instrument provides patient-reported data to help support clinical decision-making at intake and during the course of treatment in multiple settings.

• Assess patients at intake for psychological problems
• Objectively support care management decisions
• Measure patient progress during and after treatment to monitor change
• Provide outcomes measurement for treatment programmes and providers through aggregated patient information

Key Features

• The BSI test is brief and requires only 8-10 minutes to complete, making it well-suited for repeated administrations over time to evaluate patient progress.
• The BSI instrument provides an overview of a patient's symptoms and their intensity at a specific point in time.
• The Global Severity Index (GSI) is designed to help quantify a patient's severity-of-illness and provides a single composite score for measuring the outcome of a treatment program based on reducing symptom severity.
• The reliability, validity, and utility of the BSI instrument have been tested in more than 400 research studies

Scales

Symptom Scales
SOM - Somatization
O-C - Obsessive-Compulsive
I-S - Interpersonal Sensitivity
DEP - Depression
ANX - Anxiety
HOS - Hostility
PHOB - Phobic Anxiety
PAR - Paranoid Ideation
PSY - Psychoticism

Global Indices
GSI - Global Severity Index, Helps measure overall psychological distress level
PSDI - Positive Symptom Distress Index, Helps measure the intensity of symptoms
PST - Positive Symptom Total, Reports number of self-reported symptoms

Norm Groups

Adult Nonpatient
The adult nonpatient norms are based on 974 individuals—494 males and 480 females. Approximately 85% of the sample was white and 60% was married. The mean age was 46.

Adult Psychiatric Outpatient
The adult psychiatric outpatient norms are based on 1,002 individuals—425 males and 577 females. Approximately 67% of the sample was white and 46% was single. The mean age was 31.2.

Adult Psychiatric Inpatient
The adult psychiatric inpatient norms are based on 423 individuals—158 males and 265 females. Approximately 56% of the sample was white and 44% was single. The mean age was 33.1.

Adolescent Nonpatient
The adolescent norms are based on 2,408 individuals—1,601males and 807 females. The data were gathered in six separate schools in two states. Approximately 58% of the sample was white, and the mean age was 15.8.

Report Options

Profile Report:

Presents raw and normalized T scores for each of the nine Primary Symptom Dimensions and the three Global Indices. For adults, the plotted T scores are profiled based on your choice of the nonpatient, outpatient or inpatient norms. (The T scores for the remaining norm groups are printed below the profile.) For adolescents, the plotted T scores are based on the adolescent nonpatient norms.

Progress Report This report is designed for monitoring a client's progress over time. Provided at no additional charge, it graphically displays scale-by-scale changes in a client's scores for up to five previously reported BSI administrations. The progress report is based on nonpatient norms.

Q-global® Administration Options

This product is available on Q-global with the following administration options:

On-Screen Administration (OSA)

Your clients can complete these assessment online through Q-global. Alternatively, your client can complete the assessment in paper-pencil format, and their responses can then be data-entered into Q-global for scoring and report generation. On Screen Administrations are proctored (supervised) unless specifically indicated.

Remote On-Screen Administration (ROSA)
These assessments can be emailed to clients, teachers, or parents, so that the assessment can be completed at their own location. These assessments are not proctored (supervised).

If you would like more information, please visit the Q-global product page.

Sample Reports

• BSI Sample Interpretive Report
• BSI Sample Profile Report
• BSI Sample Progress Report