Assessing psychopathology in Chinese psychiatric patients in Hong Kong using the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale.

This study investigated the use of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) in a sample of 155 Chinese psychiatric patients in Hong Kong. The commonly rated symptoms were those related to the spectrum of anxiety-depression, and the symptom dimensions differed only slightly from those symptom clusters reported in past studies with the BPRS. Although symptoms were rated regardless of psychiatric diagnoses, the BPRS profiles of these patients were sensitive to diagnostic distinctions. In addition, these patients were also classifiable into the 8 phenomenological types. However, the less elevated BPRS profiles across types raised the question of whether there was a tendency to under-present symptoms on the part of the patients or to under-rate symptoms on the part of the clinicians. These results were discussed in terms of the use of the BPRS for descriptive and classification studies in the Chinese setting as well as for cross-cultural research.