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Saundra's Corner
Brief Adherence Rating Scale (BARS)
09/28/2016
The BARS scale is available in the public domain, allowing unrestricted use of this scale. An electronic copy of the BARS scale can be requested from Dr. Byerly at matt.byerly@utsouthwestern.edu .
Strengths
- Good sensitivity (73%) and specificity (74%)
- Brief clinician-administered adherence tool
- Visual Analog Scale to determine proportion of doses taken in past month
- Valid and reliable tool
- Less costly alternative to EM
- <5 minutes to administer
Weaknesses
- Relatively new scale so less clinical experience with scale available
- Use of the term “antipsychotic medication” limits the ability to generalize to patients with other psychiatric conditions
- Scale has not been examined in non-psychotic psychiatric conditions
EM = electronic monitoring
Byerly MJ, et al. Schizophr Res. 2008;100(1-3):60-69
Velligan DI, et al. J Clin Psychiatry. 2009;70(Suppl 4):1-48
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