THE BIOGRAPHICAL PERSONALITY INTERVIEW (BPI) - A NEW APPROACH TO THE ASSESSMENT OF PREMORBID PERSONALITY IN PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH PART I - DEVELOPMENT OF THE INSTRUMENT
D. Vonzerssen et al., THE BIOGRAPHICAL PERSONALITY INTERVIEW (BPI) - A NEW APPROACH TO THE ASSESSMENT OF PREMORBID PERSONALITY IN PSYCHIATRIC RESEARCH PART I - DEVELOPMENT OF THE INSTRUMENT, Journal of Psychiatric Research, 32(1), 1998, pp. 19-25
The Biographical Personality Interview (BPI) is a research instrument
for the retrospective assessment of premorbid personality traits of ps
ychiatric patients. Its construction is based on results of a series o
f investigations in which biographical data from psychiatric case note
s were analysed with respect to premorbid personality traits. In order
to avoid methodological shortcomings of the utilisation of clinical r
ecords, an interview technique was developed. It is applied by two ind
ependent, specially trained investigators who are kept ''blind'' regar
ding any clinical data of the subject under study. One of them has to
conduct the interview of a clinically remitted patient and to provide
an interview protocol, the other one has to rate personality traits fr
om that protocol along a large series of purely descriptive items. Sum
scores for six personality structures (''types'') are calculated and
the case is then assigned to the intra-individually dominating persona
lity type according to the highest of these scores. (C) 1998 Elsevier
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