mood disorders insight scale: validation of persian version

background : lack of insight in patients with bipolar i disorder has been associated with poor course and clinical outcome and compromised therapeutic compliance. therefore, it is important to evaluate insight and use more specialized scales such as mood disorder insight scale (mdis) in these patients. our objective in this study was to assess validity and reliability of persian version of mdis. methods : a hundred forty five bipolar patients were selected from iran hospital of psychiatry. they were interviewed by the persian structured clinical interview for diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorder, 4th edition's (dsm-iv) axis i disorders (scid-i) and the scale to assess unawareness of mental disorder (sumd). the translated version of mdis in persian was subsequently completed by patients. results : the internal consistency was satisfactory (cronbach alpha coefficients = 0.8). the test-retest reliability (coefficient alpha) was 0.95 (p < 0.01). construct validity and concurrent validity were supported by factor analysis and spearman rank correlation between mdis and sumd (0.85). conclusions : persian version of the mdis could be a useful instrument for assessing insight in patients with bipolar i disorder. keywords : validation studies, mood disorder insight scale, bipolar disorder, iran