The proposed project is related to NIMH research topic Assessment of Emotional and Psychological States. The goal is to develop a screening questionnaire that assists clinicians in diagnosing the most common DSM-IV Axis I disorders seem in patients presenting for outpatient mental health treatment. The Psychiatric Diagnostic Screening Questionnaire (PDSQ) has been constructed to be 1) brief enough to be completed by patients prior to their intake appointment, 2) sufficiently broad-based to capture the more frequent disorders seem in routine clinical practice, 3) amenable to quick hand scoring for immediate availability of information, and 4) directly based on DSM-IV diagnostic criteria. Phase I resulted in a 121- item questionnaire with strong psychometric properties and evidence of validity when compared to other self-report measures of psychopathology. Phase I also established the feasibility of using the PDSQ in routine clinical settings. The final, and most important, step in the construction of the PDSQ entails validating its performance up against the mental health diagnostic goal standard-a semi-structured diagnostic interview - to determine sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values for each PDSQ subscale.
The target markets include mental health professionals, primary care professionals, health maintenance organizations, managed care companies, and corporations. The instrument is expected to improve diagnostic accuracy and interview efficiency with the evaluation process in mental health or primary care settings. In the corporate setting, the instrument is expected to be used in employee assistance programs.
