THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CLINICIAN-ADMINISTERED PTSD SCALE

Several interviews are available for assessing PTSD. These interviews vary in merit when compared on stringent psychometric and utility stan dards. Of all the interviews, the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (C APS-1) appears to satisfy these standards most uniformly. The CAPS-1 i s a structured interview for assessing core and associated symptoms of PTSD. It assesses the frequency and intensity of each symptom using s tandard prompt questions and explicit, behaviorally-anchored rating sc ales. The CAPS-1 yields both continuous and dichotomous scores for cur rent and lifetime PTSD symptoms. intended for use by experienced clini cians, it also can be administered by appropriately trained paraprofes sionals. Data from a large scale psychometric study of the CAPS-1 have provided impressive evidence of its reliability and validity as a PTS D interview.