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In addition to impacting the physical health of millions of Americans, the novel-coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is a significant psychological stressor due to both the threat of the illness itself and the mitigation strategies used to contain the spread. To facilitate understanding of the impact of COVID-19, validated measures are needed. Using a stepwise procedure in line with best-practice measurement procedures, the current report summarizes the procedures employed to create the COVID-19 Impact Battery (CIB). Two independent samples recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk (N = 175, N = 642) and a third community sample (N = 259) were used for reliability and validity testing. Validation procedures yielded a battery consisting of three scales assessing COVID-19 related behaviors, worry, and disability. The behaviors scale contains three subscales assessing stockpiling, cleaning, and avoidance. The worry subscale also contains three subscales assessing health, financial and catastrophic concerns. In addition, we created a short version of the battery (CIB-S) to allow for more flexibility in data collection. In summary, we have provided reliability and validity information for the CIB and CIB-S, demonstrating that these measures can facilitate evaluation of the broad impact of COVID-19 on mental health functioning.

Objective Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common psychiatric disorder that frequently presents alongside other comorbid diagnoses. Although several evidence‐based psychotherapies have been well‐studied for PTSD, limited research has focused on the influence of diagnostic comorbidity on their outcomes. The present study sought to investigate the influence of comorbid social anxiety disorder on treatment outcomes in patients with PTSD. Methods One hundred and twelve treatment‐seeking female veteran participants with PTSD completed baseline assessments and received 12–15 sessions of Prolonged Exposure. Symptom measures were completed biweekly as well as at immediate posttreatment, 3‐month, and 6‐month follow‐ups. Results Thirty (26.8%) participants seeking PTSD treatment also met diagnostic criteria for social anxiety disorder. Multilevel modeling was used to examine effects of social anxiety disorder diagnosis on post‐intervention symptoms and revealed significantly worse outcomes for symptoms of PTSD and depression in participants with comorbid PTSD and social anxiety disorder. Conclusion Consistent with previous studies of co‐occurring PTSD and depression, present findings suggest that comorbid diagnoses may adversely affect disorder‐specific treatment outcomes. As such, the presence of diagnostic comorbidity may merit further consideration and potential adaptions to the traditional, disorder‐specific assessment and treatment practices for PTSD.