The Brief Symptom Inventory: an introductory report

TLDR

The Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) is a brief psychological self‑report symptom scale introduced in this report. The BSI, derived from the SCL‑90‑R, demonstrates strong psychometric properties, including excellent test‑retest and internal consistency reliabilities, high correlations with SCL‑90‑R and MMPI dimensions, and supportive factor‑analytic and criterion‑validity evidence, making it an acceptable short alternative to the full scale.

Abstract

Synopsis This is an introductory report for the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), a brief psychological self-report symptom scale. The BSI was developed from its longer parent instrument, the SCL-90-R, and psychometric evaluation reveals it to be an acceptable short alternative to the complete scale. Both test-retest and internal consistency reliabilities are shown to be very good for the primary symptom dimensions of the BSI, and its correlations with the comparable dimensions of the SCL-90-R are quite high. In terms of validation, high convergence between BSI scales and like dimensions of the MMPI provide good evidence of convergent validity, and factor analytic studies of the internal structure of the scale contribute evidence of construct validity. Several criterion-oriented validity studies have also been completed with this instrument