Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale BSAS
Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale BSAS overview
Creator and Context
The Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale (BSAS) is a seven item self report measure of problematic shopping behaviour.
It was developed by Cecilie Andreassen, Mark Griffiths, Stale Pallesen and colleagues and published open access in Frontiers in Psychology in 2015. It was validated in a Norwegian sample of over 23,000 adults and covers both online and offline shopping deliberately.
Presenting Conditions
The seven items map one to one onto the components model of addiction:
Salience
Mood modification
Tolerance
Withdrawal
Conflict
Relapse
Problems
Administration
Self administered in a minute or two. Each item is rated from Completely disagree (0) to Completely agree (4), in relation to the last 12 months.
Desired Audience
Adults in the general population.
Problematic shopping is a behavioural pattern that presents as debt, shame and relationship conflict long before anyone names it. Seven items and a minute of a person's time is a low cost way of opening that conversation, particularly where financial stress is already part of the picture.
Considerations
Shopping addiction is not a DSM-5 or ICD-11 diagnosis. The instrument describes a behavioural pattern, not a disorder.
There is no validated cut off. The authors proposed a tentative rule and explicitly stated it needs further investigation. Any total score threshold quoted elsewhere is invented.
The validation sample was self selected, recruited through Norwegian online newspapers, and was 65 percent female.
Test retest reliability was not assessed in the original study.
How to score the Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale BSAS
Conducting the assessment
The person rates seven items from 0 to 4, in relation to their thoughts, feelings and actions over the last 12 months.
Interpretation
Items are summed to give a total from 0 to 28. Higher scores indicate more problematic shopping.
The authors did not establish a validated cut off. Their tentative and explicitly provisional suggestion was a polythetic rule: scoring 3 (agree) or 4 (completely agree) on at least four of the seven items. They stated that this should be investigated further.
There is no validated total score threshold.
Clinical Considerations
Do not present a total score threshold as validated, because none exists.
Read the item pattern. Conflict and problems endorsed at the top of the scale mean something different from tolerance alone.
Use it as a conversation opener, particularly where financial harm is already evident.
Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale BSAS use cases
Screening for problematic shopping behaviour
Opening a conversation about compulsive spending and debt
Research into behavioural addictions
Category
General Well-being
Research Summary
Andreassen, C. S., Griffiths, M. D., Pallesen, S., Bilder, R. M., Torsheim, T., & Aboujaoude, E. (2015). The Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale: Reliability and validity of a brief screening test. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1374.
Andreassen, C. S., et al. (2022). Problematic shopping behavior: An item response theory examination of the seven item Bergen Shopping Addiction Scale. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction.
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