Reliability and Validity of the Brief Attention and Mood Scale of 7 Items (BAMS-7): A Self-Administered, Online, and Real-World Measure

Given changes in technology, regulatory guidance, and COVID-19, there has been an explosion in the number of online studies in the social and clinical sciences. This, in turn, has led to a need for brief and accessible instruments that are designed and characterized with self-administered, online research in mind. To fulfill this need, the Brief Attention and Mood Scale of 7 Items (BAMS-7) was developed and validated in five cohorts and four experiments to assess real-world attention and mood. In Experiment 1, an exploratory factor analysis was run on data from a large, healthy, adult sample ( N =75,019, ages 18-89 years). Two subscales were defined and further characterized: one for Attention, the other for Mood. In Experiment 2, convergent validity (concordance) with existing questionnaires was established in a separate sample ( N =150). Experiment 3 used a receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis to demonstrate known-groups validity of the Attention and Mood subscales using a large sample ( N =58,411) of participants reporting a lifetime diagnosis of ADHD, anxiety, or depression, as well as the healthy sample from Experiment 1. Experiment 3 also showed that the BAMS-7 Attention subscale provided superior classification performance for ADHD, and the Mood subscale provided superior classification for anxiety and depression. Finally, Experiment 4 applied the BAMS-7 definition to reanalyze data ( N =3,489) from a previously published cognitive training study ([Hardy et al., 2015][1]), finding that the Attention and Mood subscales were sensitive to the intervention (compared to an active control) to different degrees. In sum, the elucidated psychometric properties and large normative dataset ( N =75,019) for BAMS-7 may make it a useful instrument for assessing real-world attention and mood. ### Competing Interest Statement This study was supported entirely by Lumos Labs, Inc. At the time of the study, KPM, AMO, KRK, and RJS were paid employees of the company, and all hold stock in the company. ### Funding Statement This study was funded by Lumos Labs, Inc. ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: Ethics committee/IRB of Western Institutional Review Board-Copernicus Group (WCGB IRB) gave ethical approval for this work. I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes The de-identified data and code will be made available. [1]: #ref-27