A preliminary examination of the inter-rater reliability of the Personal and Social Performance Scale in adolescents

Level of social functioning is an important outcome in psychiatric research and in clinical practice. The Personal and Social Performance Scale is a comprehensive and well-validated measure of social functioning in adults with psychiatric illness.

Evaluations of the psychometric qualities of the scale are scarce when applied to adolescents. This small-scale study examines the inter-rater reliability of the Personal and Social Performance Scale in adolescents.

A semi-structured interview was conducted with eight Danish participants between age 13 and 17 years, with or without a diagnosed psychiatric illness. Agreement on ratings of the Personal and Social Performance Scale between six independent assessors was evaluated with Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC).

We found that agreement on the Personal and Social Performance Scale total scores was good (ICC=0.85). Agreement on subareas of the Personal and Social Performance Scale ranged from moderate to excellent (ICC=0.59 to ICC=0.92).

These findings contribute with preliminary evidence of the reliability of the Personal and Social Performance Scale when applied in adolescents. We suggest that future studies should explore the psychometric quality in larger samples with more variation in level of social functioning.