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The Brazilian State-Trait Anxiety Inventory has been widely used to measure state (STAI-S) and trait (STAI-T) components of anxiety. The present work developed and evaluated a short version of the STAI-S and STAI-T in a large sample of Brazilian subjects. The first study selected short-form scales. The second one employed factor analyses to investigate whether each of the two short-form scales presented a well-defined and balanced structure with both anxiety-present and anxiety-absent factors. Results indicated that the STAI-S and STAI-T could be reduced to six items (STAI-S-6 and STAI-T-6, respectively) without sacrificing their psychometric properties. The findings suggest that STAI-S-6 and STAI-T-6 may be employed in situations where time restraints make the use of full-length forms unfeasible.

Background: The present study investigated the interrater reliability of the diagnoses of schizophrenia (SCH), schizoaffective disorder (SAD), bipolar disorder (BPD) and unipolar depression (UPD) according to both DSM-IV and ICD-10, as well as the diagnostic congruence between the two classificatory systems. Sampling and Methods: Using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, two trained psychiatrists simultaneously evaluated 100 inpatients and independently assessed the psychiatric diagnoses. The Cohen’s kappa coefficient was employed to estimate interrater reliability and diagnostic congruence between DSM-IV and ICD-10. Results: SCH was more frequent according to ICD-10 than DSM-IV criteria. Considering both diagnostic systems, all the four nosological categories, but ICD-10 SAD and DSM-IV UPD, were associated with interrater reliability coefficients above 0.50. The coefficient of the diagnostic congruence between DSM-IV and ICD-10 was inferior to 0.50 only for SAD. BPD was associated with the highest degrees of both interrater reliability and diagnostic congruence. Conclusions: The lack of an item excluding the occurrence of an affective syndrome among ICD-10 diagnostic criteria for SCH can account for: the larger frequency of SCH according to ICD-10 than DSM-IV; the unsatisfactory interrater reliability for the diagnosis of ICD-10 SAD, and the low diagnostic congruence for SAD.

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