Child’s name: Date:

Child’s age:
Relationship to Child:

GENERAL BEHAVIOR INVENTORY

Here are some questions about behaviors that occur in the general population. Think about how often they occur for
your child. Using the scale below, select the number that best describes how often your child experienced these
behaviors over the past year:

0 1 2 3
Never or Sometimes Often Very Often
Hardly ever Almost Constantly

Keep the following points in mind:

Frequency: you may have noticed a behavior as far back as childhood or early teens, or you may have noticed it
more recently. In either case, estimate how frequently the behavior has occurred over the past year.

For example: if you noticed a behavior when your child was 5, and you have noticed it over the
past year, mark your answer “often” or “very often - almost constantly”. However, if your child
has experienced a behavior during only one isolated period in his/her life, but not outside that
period, mark your answer “never - hardly ever” or “sometimes”.

Duration: many questions require that a behavior occur for an approximate duration of time (for example, “several
days or more”). The duration given is a minimum duration. If your child usually experiences a behavior for shorter
durations, mark the question “never - hardly ever” or “sometimes”.

Changeability: what matters is not whether your child can get rid of certain behaviors if he/she has them, but
whether these behaviors have occurred at all. So even if your child can get rid of these behaviors, you should mark
your answer according to how frequently he/she experiences them.

Your job, then, is to rate how frequently your child has experienced a behavior, over the past year, for the
duration described in the question. Please read each question carefully, and record your answer next to each
question by placing an “X” in the appropriate box.
 0 1 2 3
Never or Sometimes Often Very Often,
Hardly ever Almost Constantly

0 1 2 3
1. Has your child experienced periods of several days or more
when, although he/she was feeling unusually happy and intensely energetic (clearly
more than your child’s usual self), he/she was also physically restless, unable to sit still,
and had to keep moving or jumping from one activity to another?

2. Have there been periods of several days or more when your child’s friends or other
family members told you that your child seemed unusually happy or high – clearly
different from his/her usual self or from a typical good mood?

3. Has your child’s mood or energy shifted rapidly back and forth from happy to
sad or high to low?

4. Has your child had periods of extreme happiness and intense energy lasting
several days or more when he/she also felt much more anxious or tense (jittery,
nervous, uptight) than usual (other than related to the menstrual cycle)?

5. Have there been times of several days or more when, although your child was
feeling unusually happy and intensely energetic (clearly more than his/her usual self),
he/she also had to struggle very hard to control inner feelings of rage or an urge to
smash or destroy things?

6. Has your child had periods of extreme happiness and intense energy (clearly
more than his/her usual self) when, for several days or more, it took him/her over an
hour to get to sleep at night?

7. Have you found that your child’s feelings or energy are generally up or down,
but rarely in the middle?

8. Has your child had periods lasting several days or more when he/she felt
depressed or irritable, and then other periods of several days or more when he/she felt
extremely high, elated, and overflowing with energy?

9. Have there been periods when, although your child was feeling unusually happy
and intensely energetic, almost everything got on his/her nerves and made him/her
irritable or angry (other than related to the menstrual cycle)?

10. Has your child had times when his/her thoughts and ideas came so fast that
he/she couldn’t get them all out, or they came so quickly others complained that they
couldn’t keep up with your child’s ideas?

Total Score
Interpretation Guide:
0 Minimal*; 1-4 Mild; 5-14 Neutral Risk; 15-17 High; 18+ Very High** risk
*Minimal scores decrease likelihood of diagnosis by approximately 100 (LR = .01);
Low scores by ~6 (LR = .16); Neutral does not change risk; High nearly triples risk (LR = 2.67)
**Very High scores increase likelihood of diagnosis by approximately 7 (LR = 7.25)
The likelihood of bipolar diagnosis is dependent on base rate of disorder in assessment setting. Please see Youngstrom, Frazier, Demeter,
Calabrese, and Findling (2008) Journal of Clinical Psychiatry for additional information. Special thanks to Mark Cooperberg, Ph.D.