Development of the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms-62 (CCAPS-62).

Abstract

Few instruments have been designed specifically to address the needs of college counseling centers. This article reviews existing instruments and presents 4 studies that describe the development and psychometric properties of a new instrument, the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms-62 (CCAPS-62). Study 1 describes the initial item development, factor analysis, and preliminary scale development steps. Study 2 describes the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using data from more than 22,000 clients pooled via a national practice-research network of counseling centers. Studies 3 and 4 provide preliminary evidence of subscales' convergent validity and retest reliability. Results from these 4 studies provide support for the instrument's factor structure, construct validity, and subscale reliabilities for both the total sample and subgroups. Clinical and methodological issues pertaining to the future development of the CCAPS are discussed in the context of a national practice-research network of college counseling centers.

Clinical validity of the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms-62 (CCAPS-62): Further evaluation and clinical applications.

“…Mplus v. 6.11 (L. K. Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2011 was used to conduct graded-response model (Samejima, 1969) of the subscales, with each CCAPS-62 subscale analyzed separately. All items that primarily load on a given subscale were entered as polytomous ordinal variables and each subscale was thus modeled as a simple one-factor solution using maximumlikelihood estimation.…”

“…The analysis was conducted using Mplus V. 6.11 (L. K. Muthén & Muthén, 1998-2011 with the default maximum likelihood estimator, as well as the default oblique GEOMIN rotation. The CCAPS-62 subscale scores (computed using unit weighting above) were treated as continuous indicator variables, with values ranging from 0 to 4.…”

Ethnic differences in prevalence and correlates of self-harm behaviors in a treatment-seeking sample of emerging adults

“…Thirteen items assessed depressive symptoms (e.g., "I feel sad all the time"), nine items assessed generalized anxiety (e.g., "There are many things I am afraid of"), seven items assessed social anxiety (e.g., "I feel uncomfortable around other people"), and six items assessed substance use (e.g., "I drink more than I should"). These subscales have demonstrated good concurrent validity and test-retest reliability with college students (Center for Collegiate Mental Health, 2012b; Locke et al, 2011). Subscale items were totaled, and a binary variable was created for each subscale using the recommended clinical cut-off for each scale (Center for Collegiate Mental Health, 2012b).…”

Assessment in a University Counseling Center: A Case Example

“…Because our assessment instrument has unknown psychometric properties, the data cannot be used to contribute to the overall understanding of campus mental health. The development of the Counseling Center Assessment of Psychological Symptoms-62 (CCAPS-62; Locke et al 2011), and CCAPS-34 (Locke et al, 2013) derived since this research was conducted shows promise, and is becoming the first widely accepted assessment instrument designed specifically for college students mental health. Perhaps such a measure could help compare the quality of individual counseling centers with other centers at similar institutions.…”