Measuring irritability in young adults: An integrative review of measures and their psychometric properties

Abstract

What is known on the subject?• Irritability is a transdiagnostic psychiatric symptom among different mental health diagnoses, such as depression, anxiety, personality and substance abuse disorders.• The findings have implications for symptom science, one focus of nursing research that evaluates symptom experiences and their impact on quality of life and functioning.Irritability is consistent with this framework as it has disabling effects on educational, financial and social functioning, as well as vulnerability to psychiatric disorders and healthrelated quality of life.

Predictability of the National Psychological Stress Screening for Subsequent Long-Term Psychiatric Sick Leave Among Employees

“…The reasons for the inverse association between irritability and psychiatric sick leave have not yet been elucidated. Irritability seemed to have some different psychological actions from other negative feelings 18 . One plausible explanation is that lack of irritability in a predicament might reflect the “typus melancholicus” of Tellenbach 19 .…”

“…Irritability seemed to have some different psychological actions from other negative feelings. 18 One plausible explanation is that lack of irritability in a predicament might reflect the "typus melancholicus" of Tellenbach. 19 Alternatively, irritability might simply act as a proxy for other unknown or unmeasured factors in the multivariable regression.…”

Assessment of Depression in Adults and Youth

“…A number of measures have been developed to assess irritability, or closely related constructs such as anger, in children (Althoff & Ametti, 2021) and adults (Saatchi et al, 2023; Toohey & DiGiuseppe, 2017). One of the most commonly used measures is the Affective Reactivity Index (Stringaris et al, 2012), which was initially developed as a self-rating scale for children and adolescents, with self- and parent-forms, but has been extended to adults (Mulraney et al, 2014), and is available as a clinician rating scale (Haller et al, 2020).…”

Intranasal Oxytocin in Pediatric Populations: Exploring the Potential for Reducing Irritability and Modulating Neural Responses: A Mini Review

“…Because it measures both symptoms of aggression and anxiety, the SDQ may work well as a surrogate measure of irritability. No studies using direct measures of irritability (such as the Affective Reactivity Index [ 67 ] or the Brief Irritability Test [ 68 ] were found, so indirect measures of potential irritability (via hypothesized mechanisms of irritability development [ 45 ]) had to be used. Duration of administration (i.e., single dose vs chronic use) was not used as an exclusionary factor, nor was dosage of OXT administered.…”