The psychometric properties the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) The BPRS was created as a quick scale to assess the severity of psychiatric symptomatology in the late 1960s (Sadock, 2015). It was created especially to evaluate change in psychotic inpatients and covers a wide range of topics, such as thought disturbance, emotional withdrawal and retardation, anxiety and despair, hostility and suspiciousness, as well as mental disturbance (Sadock, 2015).The version most often used today includes 24 different symptom areas for doctors to evaluate, though some doctors use a shorter version with only 18 symptoms (MacMillan, 2020