The subjective experience of negative symptoms: a self-rating scale

The Subjective Experience of Negative Symptoms (SENS) is an interview-based self-rating instrument designed to measure several aspects of the subjective experience of negative symptoms, i.e., awareness, causal attribution, and disruption or distress. The item set has been derived from the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS), allowing future studies to compare subjective and "objective" ratings. Discrepancies may provide an objective measure of the awareness of negative symptoms. The present study examined the reliability and stability of self-ratings in hospitalized schizophrenic patients, the prevalence of reported negative symptoms, the severity of related disruption or distress, and patients' opinions about the cause of negative symptoms. Self-ratings across intervals of 5 to 7 days and 2 months proved to be reasonably stable. Factors influencing the stability of self-assessments are discussed.