Bahrain Schizophrenia screening scale [BSSS]: a new self-rating questionnaire

The Bahrain Schizophrenia Screening Scale [BSSS] was designed as a self-rating scale to screen possible schizophrenic patients in the community. Testing the scale on a sample of normal population, schizophrenic patients, and a control group of affective disorders patients showed that the scale had a 99% sensitivity and 92.5% specificity

Validation of PSE/Catego computer programme on Arabic population

The validity of the PSE/CATEGO computer programme is assessed on a sample of new 100 psychiatric Arabic patients. The CATEGO based ICD-9 diagnoses were compared to the consensus clinical ICD-9 diagnoses. A "good" overall agreement with Kappa = + 0.71 was achieved for the 3-digit ICD-9 diagnoses. Most disorders have a very good agreement except for paranoid disorder [Kappa = + 0.71] and neurotic disorders [Kappa = + 0.71]. The Index of Definition [ID] suggested cut off point of 5 and above was found to be too high for our sample as it was likely to undetect 10% of cases. The results are discussed with the suggested changes in the CATEGO programme to suit Arabic patients