AbstractA 36‐item symptom checklist (the HSCL‐36) was assembled and assessed based on previous factor‐analytic research with the Hopkins Symptom Checklist‐90 (HSCL‐90), which had focused on outpatients. Acute psychiatric inpatients (N= 243) completed the HSCL‐36 after admission to a university hospital. The responses were factor analyzed using a principal axis extraction. Varimax rotation yielded six interpretable factors, for which factorbased subscales were derived. Five of the six subscales were found to be reliable using coefficient alpha. Results are compared with studies that used self‐report symptom checklists with outpatients. Future directions for research