The Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) was developed for rapid assessment of the severity and impact of pain in cancer patients. It is presently widely used in both research and clinical settings world-wide to assess chronic, non-malignant pain caused by a variety of clinical conditions, as well. The BPI allows patients to rate the severity of their pain and the degree to which their pain interferes with common dimensions of feeling and function. It has been used in hundreds of studies. The scale is available in two formats: the BPI short form, which is used for clinical trials and is the version used for the foreign-language translations; and the BPI long form, which contains additional descriptive items that may be clinically useful (for example, items that expand the possible descriptors of pain, such as burning, tingling, etc.). For brevity’s sake and for the patient’s ease of use, however, the developers recommend the short form of the BPI. In response to the FDA draft guidance for the pharmaceutical industry on the use of patient-reported outcomes (PRO) measures in medical product development to support labeling claims, we have prepared a BPI User's Guide to provide documentation of the BPI's development and psychometric properties. The information offered therein addresses the recommendations in the FDA draft guidance and establishes the BPI's adequacy as a measure to support medical product claims.

No description is available.

Historically, acculturation has referred to the process of change experienced by individuals of a minority group during the adoption of the majority group’s culture (Berry, 1980). Szapocznik & Kurtines (1993) have suggested that acculturation can occur in a more complex fashion that involves both the retention of the behaviors, customs and values of the culture of origin as well as the acquisition of the behaviors, customs and values of the host culture. To assess this process in Hispanic immigrants, Szapocznik and Kurtines developed the Bicultural Involvement Questionnaire that permits the separate measurement of Hispanicism Motivational Enhancement Therapy-Spanish version and Americanism (Szapocznik, Kurtines, and Fernandez, 1980). This 24-item self-report measure assesses comfort of Hispanic and English language, as well as enjoyment of cultural customs and behaviors associated with the Hispanic and American cultures using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Not at all Comfortable to 5 = Very Comfortable). Scores for three subscales are calculated, including Americanism, Hispanicism, and Biculturalism. Adequate internal consistency has been reported, ranging from .89 to .94 (Gomez & Fassinger, 1994; Szapocznik, Kurtines, & Fernandez, 1980). Acculturation (Rogler, Cortes, & Malgady, 1991) and Biculturalism (Szapocznik, Kurtines & Fernandez, 1980) levels have been related to psychological adjustment in Hispanic groups.

The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BEM) was designed for conducting empirical research on psychological androgyny. It is also used for workshops and counseling on gender awareness. The BEM contains sixty personality characteristics. Twenty of the characteristics are stereotypically feminine (e.g., affectionate, gentle, understanding, sensitive to the needs of others) and twenty are stereotypically masculine (e.g., ambitious, self-reliant, independent, assertive). The BEM also contains twenty filler items (e.g., truthful, happy, conceited). A short-form version of this scale, using 30 items, is also available.

The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) was developed to address the need for an instrument that would reliably discriminate anxiety from depression while displaying convergent validity. Such an instrument would offer advantages for clinical and research purposes over existing self-report measures, which have not been shown to differentiate anxiety from depression adequately. The scale consists of 21 items, each describing a common symptom of anxiety. The respondent is asked to rate how much he or she has been bothered by each symptom over the past week on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 3 (severely). The BAI is recommended for use in assessing anxiety in clinical and research settings.

The BTI is an instrument that can be used by substance abusers and assessment staff as a useful tool for helping identify barriers to treatment entry. It contains items drawn from the extensive literature on barriers to treatment and from items found in the Allen Barriers to Treatment Instrument (ABTI), as well as other barrier lists. Approximately 100 items from these sources were considered for inclusion in the BTI. Items were reviewed by senior clinical staff for relevance to the current population and setting. Fifty-nine items were selected for inclusion in the instrument, including 25 items that load on one or more of 7 different factors: Absence of Problem, Negative Social Support, Fear of Treatment, Privacy Concerns, Time Conflict, Poor Treatment Availability, and Admission Difficulty. The BTI has practical implications for settings that conduct substance abuse assessments, most notably CIUs like the one where this study was conducted. The average of 15 minutes spent completing the BTI could provide benefits to both individual substance abusers and assessment programs. For the individual, a discussion of BTI results may improve the likelihood that barriers are successfully resolved and that linkage occurs. By increasing linkage rates, programs conduct fewer assessments that do not result in successful follow-through. The BTI could also provide programs with aggregate information about the clients they assess. By identifying the barriers that could impact treatment entry, assessment programs are better able to develop effective interventions to facilitate treatment entry. For example, motivational interviewing has shown value in helping clients manage the ambivalence that often surrounds substance use and the decisions to seek treatment. Treatment mentors could be engaged to help prospective clients deal with their fears about treatment and their reticence about revealing personal information to others.

The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11; Patton et al., 1995) is a questionnaire designed to assess the personality/behavioral construct of impulsiveness. The current version is composed of 30 items describing common impulsive or non-impulsive (for reverse scored items) behaviors and preferences.

This assessment measures participants’ attitudes toward the use of the female condom. It consists of 18 items scored on a 5-point Likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree). Five additional questions ask about intent to use the female condom, with what kind of partner, and whether this will be in the next 3-month period of time.

This is a 13-item subscale from the Sexual Risks Scale (DeHart & Birkimer, 1997) to assess participants’ attitudes toward condom use. The subscale was developed to reliably and validly measure variables hypothesized to be influential in predicting HIV sexual risk behaviors.