A New Personal Disturbance Scale (DSSI/sAD)

Abstract

A brief self‐report measure of personal disturbance is presented. Being derived from the Delusions‐Symptoms‐States Inventory, it focuses exclusively on recent symptomatology, uncontaminated by personality attributes. Data are presented which show significant agreement ( a ) for the allocation of the items to syndromes by experienced raters, and ( b ) between patients' self‐report and their psychiatrists' ratings. At the anxiety, depression, and total sAD scale levels a high discrimination is found between the normal and patient groups. Comment is made on the change in sAD scores over time, and their abnormal distributions, both of which are in contrast to personality measures. The scales appear relevant to treatment evaluation and for detecting the personally disturbed in general populations.