Assessing Body Awareness in Healthy Subjects ? The First Steps Towards the Construction of the BAS-Health

The aim of this study was to find out if it is possible to differentiate a group of healthy subjects, in this case general practitioners, in terms of body awareness. The Body Awareness Scale, which had previously been used and validated for psychiatric patients, was employed. The scale had to be adjusted to serve the purpose of the study. Our paper describes the changes made and the rea sons for making them. When assessed by the adjusted scale, the doctors showed substantial differences, which indicates that the scale might be a useful tool. There was also a high degree of inter-rater reliability between our two assessors. Lastly, some of the scale items were more discriminative than others and, therefore, it may be possible that only a limited number are required when assessing body awareness in healthy subjects. Further studies are needed to find out whether the scale would be useful in other contexts. The possible uses of body awareness assessments in physiotherapy and in the clinical work of doctors are discussed.