Systematic Review of Psychometric Proprieties of Barratt Impulsiveness Scale Version 11 (bis-11)

Impulsivity is an essential dimension of personality and several theories posit that impulsiveness is related to distinct personality traits and to neuropsychological functions. One of the most widely self-report impulsivity measures used on psychiatric research is Barratt Impulsiveness Scale, version 11 (BIS-11). Objective: The aim of present study was to conduct a systematic review on the literature that examines psychometric proprieties of Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) versions across different cultures. Method: Studies were obtained from MEDLINE, PsycINFO and CAPES periodicals portal. The articles were included if they have investigated at least one psychometric characteristics of BIS-11 with adults or adolescent samples (internal consistence, factor analysis and/or test-retest). Results: Twenty-one studies were included in this review with different methodological characteristics across them. Conclusion: The results indicated BIS-11 has reliability and criterion-related validity across samples. Our findings do not support the hypothesis that BIS-11 assesses the three impulsivity components originally supposed by Barratt. Both numbers and content factors assessed are instable what configures a problematic issue. It may lead to potential misinterpretations of scores used to characterize impulsivity in clinical and non-clinical groups. To future research, we recommend new efforts to explore BIS items internal organization rather than applying the initial model to calculate scores. Theoretical and empirical items analyses could be a methodological strategy to improve scale validity. It could identify that some items may be better represented in different factors, diverging, this way, from those originally proposed.