The PANSS is utilized in clinical trials for assessment of psychopathology. In order to determine the status of a patient, comparisons within a general population are necessary. If several groups of patients are to be compared, gender, age, co-morbid diagnoses, and other factors affecting clinical status are not identically distributed.

1) Phase 1: To establish the initial psychometric properties of the PANSS-Ru. 2) Phase 2: To establish normed-reference data for the PANSS-Ru.

Phase 1: 40 patients with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Phase 2: 375 individuals (n = 250 patients; n = 125 controls). Responses were assessed for internal consistency, stability, reliability, discriminative validity, and construct validity. Fifth percentile norms are presented as step functions. Data were compared to US norms.

40 subjects enrolled for Phase 1. Alpha coefficient of 0.88 verified good internal consistency. Test-retest comparisons verified time stability (r = 0.67 to 0.92). Correlation between subscale and the total scores ranged from 0.76 to 0.86, compared to > 0.83 for US norm studies. Internal consistencies were α > 0.745. Mean subscale/ total score were equivalent to US population norms within 13%. However, there was a difference of > 5 norm-based points for mean general psychopathology subscale. Norms had a sensitivity of 85% and specificity of 89%.

Preliminary results show that different dimensions of symptom presentations in the Russian population may help to improve symptom-specific treatments, and will also provide comparison data for a Russian population. Further normative studies are warranted in other populations.