Initial development and preliminary psychometric properties of the Prodromal Inventory of Negative Symptoms (PINS)

Abstract

In the psychosis prodrome, sub-threshold positive symptoms are often preceded by negative symptoms. Individuals exhibiting these attenuated symptoms are primarily adolescents and young adults at clinical high-risk (CHR) for developing a psychotic disorder. In the CHR state, negative symptoms are highly predictive of the transition to diagnosable illness, making the assessment of these symptoms very important. Existing scales used to evaluate negative symptoms in this critical population are informative but have conceptual and psychometric limitations and/or were not designed according to modern conceptions delineated in the 2005 NIMH Negative Symptom Consensus Conference. The current study reports the development of the Prodromal Interview of Negative Symptoms (PINS) – a next-generation scale designed in accordance with the consensus conference recommendations. Preliminary data on the psychometric properties of the PINS is reported as part of ongoing scale development that will use a data-driven, iterative process to generate a final scale. Analysis of data from 53 CHR cases, 30 of whom were re-evaluated at 12-months, indicated that the beta version of the PINS demonstrated good internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. These preliminary findings provide direction for a revision of this measure, which resulted in the PINS-2, a promising new measure for the assessment of negative symptoms in CHR populations. This manuscript presents both the initial scale and resulting untested instrument, as well as a series of plans and recommendations for future development.

Emotion regulation across the psychosis continuum

“…Prior to completing the questionnaires, examiners who were trained to reliability standards (interclass correlation coefficient, ICC > 0.80) conducted a structured diagnostic interview with all participants to complete the SCID-I, SCID-II, and SIPS. CHR participants were also rated on the Prodromal Inventory of Negative Symptoms (PINS) (Pelletier-Baldelli, Strauss, Visser, & Mittal, 2017), which is the CHR adapted version of the Brief Negative Symptom Scale (BNSS) (Kirkpatrick et al, 2011), and completed the YPARQ-B.…”

Diminished Hedonic response in neuroleptic-free youth at ultra high-risk for psychosis

“…SIPS interviews were either performed directly by the PI or by a clinical psychology doctoral student trained to reliability standards who consulted with the PI on all cases for consensus. A clinical interview was also completed to assess symptom severity in the UHR group, after which ratings were made on the Prodromal Inventory for Negative Symptoms (PINS: Pelletier-Baldelli et al, 2017 ).…”

Negative symptoms of psychosis: A life course approach and implications for prevention and treatment

“…There are several clues that the psychosis prodrome is important to our understanding of the evolution of negative symptoms, and some novel scales in development reflect this (Pelletier‐Baldelli, Strauss, Visser, & Mittal, ). Negative symptoms have been reported as the commonest first onset symptom in schizophrenia (an der Heiden & Hafner, ), and negative symptoms may be a risk factor for transition to psychosis, both in a clinical high risk and a general population (Cannon et al, ; Maki et al, ; Nieman et al, ; Piskulic et al, ; Velthorst et al, ).…”

“…Negative symptoms in the psychosis prodrome and early psychosisThere are several clues that the psychosis prodrome is important to our understanding of the evolution of negative symptoms, and some novel scales in development reflect this (Pelletier-Baldelli,Strauss, Visser, & Mittal, 2017). Negative symptoms have been reported as the commonest first onset symptom in schizophrenia (an der Heiden &…”