Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS)

Robert C. Young, Jeffrey T. Biggs, Veronika E. Ziegler, Dolores A. Meyer · 1978

Eleven-item clinician rating of manic symptom severity, adapted for tagging manic features in interview speech.

The Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS) is the most widely used clinician instrument for gauging the severity of manic symptoms. Each item is rated from a clinical interview; four items (irritability, speech, thought content, disruptive/aggressive behaviour) carry double weight in the original scale because they are harder to elicit in severely ill patients.

Here the items are recast as span-annotatable phenomena for interview transcripts. Most items are evidence-mode — you highlight the passage that supports a rating of elevated mood, grandiosity, reduced sleep, and so on. Two items concern the form of speech itself — Speech (rate and amount) and Language-Thought Disorder — and are instance-mode: you mark the specific utterances that display pressured speech or disorganized, tangential, flight-of-ideas language. Rate only the subject's presentation, never the interviewer's prompts.

Domains (10)

Elevated MoodELM

Expansive, euphoric, or inappropriately cheerful mood out of keeping with circumstances.

Curated skill
Increased Activity/EnergyACT

Reports of restlessness, heightened drive, or excessive goal-directed or motor activity.

Curated skill
Sexual InterestSEX

Heightened sexual interest, preoccupation, or disinhibited sexual talk or behaviour.

Curated skill
SleepSLP

Reduced need for sleep with sustained energy despite little rest.

Curated skill
IrritabilityIRR

Irritable, touchy, or hostile mood; short-tempered or easily provoked.

Curated skill
Speech (Rate and Amount)SPE

Increased rate and volume of speech that is pressured and hard to interrupt.

Curated skill
Language-Thought DisorderLTD

Disorganized, tangential, circumstantial, or flight-of-ideas language; distractible, hard to follow.

Curated skill
ContentCNT

Grandiose, expansive, or paranoid ideas, ranging from over-valued plans to frank delusions.

Curated skill
Disruptive-Aggressive BehaviourAGG

Verbal or physical hostility, threats, uncooperativeness, or demanding, provocative behaviour.

Curated skill
InsightINS

Impaired awareness of being ill or of the abnormality of one's own behaviour.

Curated skill
Young RC, Biggs JT, Ziegler VE, Meyer DA. A rating scale for mania: reliability, validity and sensitivity. Br J Psychiatry. 1978;133:429-435. doi:10.1192/bjp.133.5.429

Young et al. 1978 (Br J Psychiatry); freely published, treated as public domain for research/clinical use with citation. Cite Young et al.