TRAINING AND QUALITY ASSURANCE WITH THE BRIEF PSYCHIATRIC RATING-SCALE - THE DRIFT BUSTERS

Despite the prominence of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) in psychiatric research, relatively little has been published about training methods and procedures used to maintain consistency over time of interviewer style and inter-rater reliability. A training and quality assurance program, developed at the UCLA Clinical Research Center for Schizophrenia and Psychiatric Rehabilitation, has relied on an expanded manual with behavioral anchor points that are used when trainees view a series of videotaped BPRSs or conduct live BPRS interviews. Trainees with both advanced and predoctoral degrees were able to achieve and maintain high levels of reliability.