Changes in self-rating of symptoms: a comparison of questionnaire graphic scales with test cards

Forty-five in-patients, with primary diagnoses of neurosis or personality disorder, completed the test cards and booklet versions of the Symptom Rating Test--Day (SRT). In order to facilitate retroactive interference the Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) and the Maudsley Personality Inventory (MPI) were administered between the two forms of the SRT. On the next day the patients were given the SRT (Week). The initial SRT, MAS and MPI testing was repeated one week later. On the assumption that positional set is an important consideration predictions were made as to the expected differences between the test cards and booklet modes of SRT administration. The results add support to the practical use of the SRT in its more recent standardized format.