Brief PANSS to assess and monitor the overall severity of schizophrenia

Aims:  The aim of the present study was to develop a subscale of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) that would be brief and sensitive to changes in the clinical features of schizophrenia (i.e. the Brief PANSS, or bPANSS). Methods:  The PANSS before and after treatment, and the Clinical Global Impression–Change (CGI-C) was rated for 714 schizophrenia patients. Of these, Clinical Global Impression–Severity (CGI-S) was also evaluated in 30 of these patients. The bPANSS items were extracted from full PANSS items based on the following aims: (i) to develop a brief scale; (ii) to develop a scale sensitive to changes resulting from antipsychotic treatment; and (iii) to reflect the broad spectrum of schizophrenia symptoms. Results:  The following six items were extracted to serve as the bPANSS: delusion, suspiciousness, emotional withdrawal, passive/apathetic social withdrawal, tension, and unusual thought content. The coefficients of correlation between the bPANSS and full PANSS before and after treatment were 0.86 and 0.92, respectively (both P < 0.001). The coefficient of correlation between the degrees of change in the scores for the bPANSS and the full PANSS was 0.93 (P < 0.001), and that between delta bPANSS and CGI-C was 0.73 (P < 0.001). Conclusions:  bPANSS is able to capture the overall clinical features of schizophrenia within a short assessment period.