Abstract
The objective of the present study was to evaluate the reliability and clinical utility of a Portuguese version of the Abnormal Involuntary Movements Scale (AIMS). Videotaped interviews with 16 psychiatric inpatients treated with antipsychotic drugs for at least 5 years were evaluated. Reliability was assessed by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) between three raters, two with and one without clinical training in psychopathology. Clinical utility was assessed by the difference between the scores of patients with (N = 11) and without (N = 5) tardive dyskinesia (TD). Patients with TD exhibited a higher severity of global evaluation by the AIMS (sum of scores: 4.2 +/- 0.9 vs 0.4 +/- 0.2; score on item 8: 2.3 +/- 0.3 vs 0.4 +/- 0.2, TD vs controls). The ICC for the global evaluation was fair between the two skilled raters (0.58-0.62) and poor between these raters and the rater without clinical experience (0.05-0.29). Thus, we concluded that the Portuguese version of the AIMS shows an acceptable inter-rater reliability, but only between clinically skilled raters, and that it is clinically useful.
Highlights
The introduction of effective medications for the treatment of schizophrenia and other psychoses was a major advance in twentiethcentury medicine [1]
These drugs were initially named “neuroleptics” because of their tendency to produce acute extrapyramidal side effects, and some clinicians and investigators felt this was an essential characteristic of a drug that would have therapeutic activity in the treatment of schizophrenia
A few years after the introduction of antipsychotic drugs, Schönecker described the occurrence of tardive dyskinesia (TD) as an involuntary movement disorder characterized by a variable mixture of the following features: orofacial and lingual dyskinesia, tics, grimacing, truncal or axial muscle involvement, chorea, athetosis, and dystonias
Summary
The introduction of effective medications for the treatment of schizophrenia and other psychoses was a major advance in twentiethcentury medicine [1]. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the inter-rater reliability and the diagnostic discrimination (clinical utility) of the Portuguese version of the AIMS in Brazilian patients. There are two methods to evaluate global severity of TD by AIMS: the sum of items and the highest score for any item.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
