Objective: The reliability and validity of the Turkish translation of the Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) were determined in this study, since it is the most common scale used in clinical studies of mood disorders.
Method: Fifteen male and 15 female inpatients who were diagnosed as having "Bipolar Mood Disorder--Recent Episode Mania", were given YMRS by two experienced psychiatrists, while another experienced psychiatrist gave the Bech-Rafaelsen Mania Scale (BRMS) simultaneously to the same patient population hospitalized in Bakirköy State Hospital for Psychiatric and Neurological Diseases, Psychiatry and Mood Disorders Inpatient Unit 5. The internal consistency of the Turkish version of YMRS was evaluated by the Cronbach's Alpha test, while item/item, item/total, and cross validity correlations were evaluated by the Pearson correlation test. Inter-rater agreement and consistency was evaluated by weighted kappa analysis.
Results: The internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach's alpha) was 0.79 for both researchers. Correlations of the items individually with the YMRS total scores were between 0.407 and 0.847. Agreement of the interviewers for the items was between 63.3%-95% and kappa values for the items were between 0.114 and 0.849. Correlation coefficients of YMRS and BRMS of the researchers were 0.72 for the first researcher and 0.71 for the second researcher.
Conclusion: The Turkish translation of YMRS was found to be valid and reliable.