Towards enhancing the utility of Beth Israel Hospital Psychosomatic Questionnaire

This study was aimed to develop uniform methods of rating the Beth Israel Hospital Psychosomatic Questionnaire (BIQ) to enhance its reliability and to obtain normative data. Certain guidelines were evolved to rate the items based on responses to probe questions, and the questionnaire administered to a sample of 116 normal subjects. The instrument was found to have adequate internal consistency. Test-retest reliability and interrater reliability, which were tested on two separate samples, were also found to be adequate. Using the cutoff at mean + 1 SD, 9.5% of the subjects studied (6% males and 3.5% females) were identified as alexithymic. Certain limitations of the instrument and directions for future research have been pointed out.