The aim of this study was to review six nurse-rating schedules to evaluate their suitability for a British psychiatric unit and current nursing practice. They were compared for their reliability, their concordance with psychiatric ratings and their acceptability to the nursing staff. It was found that psychiatric and nursing observations corresponded over a wide area of psychopathology: anxiety, tension, depression, hostility, preoccupation with hypochondriacal, grandiose and self-depreciatory ideas, hallucinosis, thought disorders, mannerisms, retardation, emotional withdrawal, hypomanic activity and uncooperative behaviour. These were adequately covered by two of the scales, the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) and the Psychotic Inpatient Profile (PIP), which together took 7 1/2 minutes to complete. Another of the schedules studied, the Nursing Rating Scale (Hargreaves), also had relatively high reliability and a broad effective range.
The clinical features shown by 50 psychotic patients were documented by interviews held with the patient and next-of-kin, brief videotaped interviews and nurse rating in addition to the hospital case record. Three raters studied all the available material and made master ratings. Comparison of the ratings made at mental state interview with these master ratings showed that this interview missed a great deal of the pathology agreed to be present. The interview with the next-of-kin was helpful in identifying manic symptoms. Nurse rating based on an 8-hour period of observation was less effective overall, but highly significant associations with the master ratings were achieved in 29/57 areas studied. In four areas (uncooperative behaviour, concern for others, agitation and distractibility) it was superior to either interview.
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