The standardized assessment of the need for treatment and support in severe mental illness: The development and testing of the german version of the camberwell Assessment of Need-EU

Objective: The development and the psychometric testing of the German versi on of the Camberwell Assessment of Need-EU will be presented. Method: The i nternal consistency of the subscales total needs, met needs and unmet needs was tested by the application of the CAN-EU on a representative sample of 307 patients with schizophrenia according to ICD-10 F20.0. Test-retest-reli ability and inter-rater-reliability was tested with a sub-sample of 41 pati ents. Results: The internal consistency and the test-retest-reliability of the German version of the CAN-EU is satisfying and slightly higher in compa rison with the other European versions. The inter-rater-reliability is also satisfying but smaller in comparison with the other European versions. Con clusions: In general, the psychometric properties of the German version of the CAN-EU are satisfying but the lower inter-rater-reliability in comparis on with the other European versions suggests that more precise coding rules for the German version of the CAN-EU must be formulated to improve the int errater agreement of the instrument.