College student norms on the brief symptom inventory

The Brief Symptom Inventory was administered to 204 female and 143 male students at a 4-year college. Their mean scores on the nine primary symptom dimensions were compared with means of a normative sample of older adults and younger adolescents. The results indicated that college students reported significantly higher levels of distress than did the adult sample and that they showed a different pattern of distress than the younger adolescents. It was suggested that counselors and clinicians may wish to use college level norms when they are using the Brief Symptom Inventory with college students.