The CORE‐10: A short measure of psychological distress for routine use in the psychological therapies

Abstract

Background: There is a need for a generic, short, and easy‐to‐use assessment measure for common presentations of psychological distress in UK primary care mental health settings. This paper sets out the development of the CORE‐10 in response to this need. Method: Items were drawn from the CORE‐OM and 10 items were selected according to a combination of usefulness, coverage of item clusters, and statistical procedures. Three CORE‐OM datasets were employed in the development phase: (1) a primary care sample, (2) a sample from an MRC platform trial of enhanced collaborative care of depression in primary care, and (3) a general population sample derived from the Office of National Statistics Psychiatric Morbidity Follow‐up survey. A fourth dataset comprising a sample from an occupational health setting was used to evaluate the CORE‐10 in its standalone format. Results: The internal reliability (alpha) of the CORE‐10 was .90 and the score for the CORE‐10 correlated with the CORE‐OM at .94 in a clinical sample and .92 in a non‐clinical sample. The clinical cut‐off score for general psychological distress was 11.0 with a reliable change index (90% CI) of 6. For depression, the cut‐off score for the CORE‐10 was 13 and yielded sensitivity and specificity values of .92 (CI=.83–1.0) and 0.72 (CI=.60–.83) respectively. Conclusion: The CORE‐10 is an acceptable and feasible instrument that has good psychometric properties and is practical to use with people presenting with common mental health problems in primary care settings.

An exploration of an integrated counselling and coaching approach with distressed young people

“…The CORE-10 (Connell & Barkham, 2007 Barkham et al, 2013), and correlations of r =.81 with the Symptoms Checklist-90-R (Derogatis, 1994) and r =.77 with the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, 1978) attest to its validity (Evans et al, 2000). The practical nature of the measure for use in primary care settings for those with common mental health problems was noted by Barkham et al (2013).…”

“…The practical nature of the measure for use in primary care settings for those with common mental health problems was noted by Barkham et al (2013). In the current study, the CORE-10 was completed by young people aged 17 and above.…”

Further evidence that singing fosters mental health and wellbeing: the West Kent and Medway project

“…Higher scores are indicative of greater mental distress. For CORE-10, a clinical cut-off score of 11 has been identified as an indicator of need for mental health support, and a change score of six (up or down) is considered clinically important (Barkham, et al, 2013).…”

A 2-Item Short Form of the Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire: Development and Psychometric Evaluation of PSEQ-2

“…For example, brief measures have been developed to assess for depression 28 and anxiety, 29 to measure the distress associated with diabetes, 35 osteoarthritis, 46 cancer, 57 and urinary incontinence, 55 and more generally to assess psychological distress in primary care mental health settings. 6 Short self-report scales have also been developed to assess various aspects of pain experience and pain coping such as pain acceptance, 14 pain burden, 49 pain catastrophizing, 13 pain beliefs and coping strategies, 22,46,53 and pain-related ''yellow flags.'' 31 Within the context of adjustment to chronic pain, pain self-efficacy is an important construct.…”