Brief psychiatric rating scale for children: quantitative scoring of medical records.

The utility of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale for Children (BPRS-C) for transcribing narrative medical records into standard quantitative form for research purposes is examined. Three clinicians independently read and rated the records of 40 child and adolescent patients. Interrater reliabilities were adequate in most major domains of psychopathology, the one notable exception being symptoms in the anxiety domain. On the basis of these results, the BPRS-C appears appropriate for use in administrative and audit reviews, as well as in epidemiological and program evaluation research in which medical records are the primary sources of information.