Reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS)

The Turkish version of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), which is a semistructured interview scale, was evaluated for construct validity, internal consistency, and interrater reliability. The PANSS consists of positive syndrome,,negative syndrome, and general psychopathology subscales. After its translation to Turkish, the PANSS was administered to a sample of 100 patients diagnosed as schizophrenic according to the DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. The first 20 patients were interviewed by Two clinicians at the same time and were rated seperately for the evaluation of interrater reliability. All of the subscales of the PANSS exhibited a normal distribution pattern. Reguarding internal consistency, the Cronbach alpha values for each of the subscales were found to be high. Reguarding the construct validity partial correlation between the positive and negative syndrome subscales showed inverse correlation, suggesting that the two subscales measured different dimensions. The intraclass coefficients were quite high for each of the subscales and the total scale, indicating high interrater reliability. These findings suggest that the validity and the reliability of the Turkish version of the PANSS are satisfactory. In the present study, the relations between the PANNS subscales and sex education Iel,fl, and duration of illness were also investigated. Sex and education level were found to have significant effects on negative syndrome subscale scores.