The interpersonal impact approach to patient assessment: specific links between psychotics' symptoms and staff's...

Specific links between the subjective feelings of inpatient staff members and the symptoms of their chronic psychotic patients were explored. The staff's feelings were assessed by a new structured interview. The patients' symptoms were measured by the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale. Results suggest that differences among staff responses can be adequately described using four dimensions and each of these dimensions has a specific link with patient symptoms on the BPRS.