Brief Symptoms Inventory psychometric properties supports the hypothesis of a general psychopathological factor.

INTRODUCTION The existence of a general factor related to psychiatric symptoms is supported by studies using a variety of methods in both clinical and non-clinical samples. OBJECTIVE This study aims to evaluate the replicability of the internal structure of the Brief Symptom Inventory of a large Brazilian sample. METHODS Participants were 6,427 Brazilian subjects (81% female). The mean age was 42.1 years old (SD = 13.6, Min = 13, Max = 80). All participants completed the online version of the Brief Symptom Inventory. This scale presents a general score (GSI) and nine specific clusters of symptoms (depression, anxiety, phobic anxiety, interpersonal sensibility, psychoticism, paranoid ideation, obsessive-compulsive behavior, hostility, and somatization symptoms). RESULTS Confirmatory factorial analysis was performed to assess the factorial BSI structure. Results support that the bifactorial solution was the best-fitting model and the general factor showed itself to be the main dimension explaining most of the reliable variability in the data. CONCLUSIONS Findings suggest that BSI internal structure was replicated in a non-clinical sample and the general factor is the most reliable score. However, it is necessary to have a better understanding of the meaning of the general factor scores in a non-clinical sample to increase the interpretability of its scores.