The Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale (BSAS) is a brief

screening Screening may refer to: * Screening cultures, a type a medical test that is done to find an infection * Screening (economics), a strategy of combating adverse selection (includes sorting resumes to select employees) * Screening (environmental), a ...

tool for assessing the severity of

shopping addiction Shopping addiction is characterized by an eagerness to purchase unnecessary or superfluous things and a lack of impulse control when it comes to shopping. It is a concept similar to compulsive buying disorder (''oniomania''), but usually has a more ...

Background

The Bergen Scale is named after the city of

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...

, Norway, the location of the

University of Bergen The University of Bergen ( no, Universitetet i Bergen, ) is a research-intensive state university located in Bergen, Norway. As of 2019, the university has over 4,000 employees and 18,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in 194 ...

, where lead author

Cecilie Andreassen Cecilie is a given name. Notable people with the name include: *Cecilie Broch Knudsen (born 1950), artist and rector of the Oslo National Academy of the Arts *Cecilie Henriksen (born 1986), football forward from Næstved, Denmark *Cecilie Løvei ...

is a professor of

clinical psychology Clinical psychology is an integration of social science, theory, and clinical knowledge for the purpose of understanding, preventing, and relieving psychologically based distress or dysfunction and to promote subjective well-being and persona ...

Format

The Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale (BSAS) consists of 28 statements. The participant is asked to rate how strongly each of the statements relates to their thoughts and behavior in the last 12 months. Each item is rated on a five-point continuum of agreement: completely disagree, disagree, neither disagree nor agree, agree, completely agree. Groups of four items are targeted toward each of seven addiction criteria (salience, mood modification, conflict, tolerance, withdrawal, relapse, and problems).

Improvements

The BSAS offers several improvements over prior compulsive shopping assessments. *

Compulsive shopping Compulsive buying disorder (CBD), or oniomania (from Ancient Greek, Greek ὤνιος ''ṓnios'' "for sale" and μανία ''manía'' "insanity"), is characterized by an obsession with shopping and buying behavior that causes adverse consequence ...

has been increasingly placed within the

behavioral addiction Behavioral addiction is a form of addiction that involves a compulsion to engage in a rewarding non- substance-related behavior – sometimes called a natural reward – despite any negative consequences to the person's physical, mental, social o ...

paradigm, while existing assessments have primarily been rooted within the impulse-control or

obsessive–compulsive disorder Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental and behavioral disorder in which an individual has intrusive thoughts and/or feels the need to perform certain routines repeatedly to the extent where it induces distress or impairs general ...

paradigms. * While existing screens tend not assess the core criteria and components of addiction, the BSAS directly addresses each of the seven addiction criteria with sets of four items. * Unlike existing screens, which tend to use the terms "shopping," "buying," and "spending" interchangeably, the BSAS items were created with the nuance between these terms in mind and is generally more reflective of contemporary shopping habits.

References

External links

Online version of the BSAS
Behavioral addiction Mental disorders screening and assessment tools {{psych-stub

Background

Format

Improvements

See also

References

External links