The Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) in geropsychiatric research: II. Representative profile patterns.

Cluster analysis methods were used to classify Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale profiles for a sample of 88 geropsychiatric patients. Five distinct profile patterns were found to represent adequately most differences in symptom and behavior characteristics of the aged patients. The five phenomenological types are described as agitated dementia, retarded dementia, anxious depression, withdrawn depression, and paranoid psychosis. The appropriateness of this nomenclature is examined with reference to clinical diagnosis, mental status examination, and drug treatment. Prototype profile patterns that can be used to classify future geropsychiatric patients are presented, and a sequence of clinical decisions that should result in similar partitioning of the patient population is discussed.