Inter- and Intra-Rater Reliability of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale

Abstract

Video-taped interviews and mock ratings of typical cases were employed to evaluate raters' consistency of 37 raters (14 staff psychiatrists, 11 psychiatric residents, 10 clinical psychologists and interns, 2 nurses). Total score across time was most stable, single scale scores least consistent. Trends between professional groups were not large and not always related to degree of training, but psychologists rated typical patients more consistently, psychiatric residents showed greater across-time and inter-rater consistency. The latter varied on taped interviews with symptoms being rated. Over-all, reliabilities on the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale were as high as could be expected.