Evidence Base Update for Brief, Free, and Accessible Youth Mental Health Measures

Abstract

Evidence-based assessment (EBA) is foundational to high-quality mental health care for youth and is a critical component of evidence-based practice delivery, yet is underused in the community. Administration time and measure cost are barriers to use; thus, identifying and disseminating brief, free, and accessible measures are critical. This Evidence Base Update evaluates the empirical literature for brief, free, and accessible measures with psychometric support to inform research and practice with youth. A systematic review using PubMed and PsycINFO identified measures in the following domains: overall mental health, anxiety, depression, disruptive behavior, traumatic stress, disordered eating, suicidality, bipolar/mania, psychosis, and substance use. To be eligible for inclusion, measures needed to be brief (50 items or less), free, accessible, and have psychometric support for their use with youth. Eligible measures were evaluated using adapted criteria established by De Los Reyes and Langer (2018) and were classified as having excellent, good, or adequate psychometric properties. A total of 672 measures were identified; 95 (14%) met inclusion criteria. Of those, 21 (22%) were "excellent," 34 (36%) were "good," and 40 (42%) were "adequate." Few measures had support for their use to routinely monitor progress in therapy. Few measures with excellent psychometric support were identified for disordered eating, suicidality, psychosis, and substance use. Future research should evaluate existing measures for use with routine progress monitoring and ease of implementation in community settings. Measure development is needed for disordered eating, suicidality, psychosis, and substance use to increase availability of brief, free, accessible, and validated measures.

A Qualitative Examination of a School-Based Implementation of Computer-Assisted Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Child Anxiety

“…Furthermore, many participants commented on the onerous nature of the BASC. Shorter screening measures (e.g., the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System-anxiety scale; Pilkonis et al, 2011) would likely be more feasible for teachers (Becker-Haimes et al, 2019). User-centered design strategies also may be helpful for creating/adapting EBIs to fit school contexts (Lyon & Koerner, 2016).…”

Assessing the Impact of Mental Health Difficulties on Young People’s Daily Lives: Protocol for a Scoping Umbrella Review of Measurement Instruments

“…We will review clearinghouses of measurement instruments [35] for any additional scales that were missed by the included reviews, and will also make a note of any additional instruments identified while screening for eligibility.…”

“…Several reviews provide overviews of available instruments [28][29][30][31][32][33][34], their measurement properties and feasibility characteristics, but these have tended to be domain-specific (e.g., focusing only on HRQoL); consequently, a comprehensive overview of life impact measures is lacking. On the other hand, broader reviews of mental health assessment tools [e.g., [35][36][37] have not typically been exhaustive in their coverage of life impact measures, and have not tended to examine methodological questions specific to life impact assessment.…”

A pediatrician‐friendly review of three common behavioral health screeners in pediatric practice: Findings and recommendations

“…[29][30][31] A compendium of these measures is beyond the scope of this pediatrician-friendly analysis, but a comprehensive review is available elsewhere. [29][30][31][32] Consequently, the present work focuses on the PSC-17, PHQ-9, and SCARED for several reasons. First, all three measures are reviewed and recommended in previous large scale authoritative scholarly articles.…”

“…There are a number of behavioral health screeners available for use with children and adolescents. [29][30][31] A compendium of these measures is beyond the scope of this pediatrician-friendly analysis, but a comprehensive review is available elsewhere. [29][30][31][32] Consequently, the present work focuses on the PSC-17, PHQ-9, and SCARED for several reasons.…”